Dark Chocolate & Pink Petals

For our birthday Cathy had organised a braai for a few of her friends who happened to be in Cape Town. It turned out to be rainy and cold that evening and Cathy had been so excited and looking forward to her friends coming that she had not made alternative plans in case of bad weather. But Joel came to the rescue and the braai soon became a delicious chicken stew with roasted vegetables and garlic bread. Later on Cathy brought out the chocolate cake which was certainly a delight to the eyes, all wrapped up in its warm coat of glistening dark brown and its baroque hat of pink and cerise petals. But it was a good, fooling 'cover up' as it turned out to be a very ordinary sponge cake on the inside and no delight to the palate. But it's only the next morning that we really discovered the 'cover up' as strangely enough, after wine, the cake the previous evening had been rather good!
It was a lovely evening with much laughter, good music, excited chatting, good wine, yellow flowers, sweet-worded cards, a licky dog, a delicious meal and pleasing presents. Cathy wore one of the tops that I gave her and had much fun opening all her other presents. When everyone had left we sat around and reflected on our wonderful evening. It was also Tony and my 14th wedding anniversary and the evening felt, privately to both of us only, that it had also been a celebration of 14 years of love and togetherness and adventures and fun.