A very small birthday cake

Hello everyone,

It’s been over a week now since my daughter and her partner Josh departed on their exciting new adventure in Romania. If I’m honest, I was so pleased for them, I wasn’t expecting to feel as emotional as I did!

Anyway, they’re settled in to their new apartment, have been busy filing all the necessary paperwork and had a little time to explore. In Katie’s words all they need now is Jeremy and it will be ‘home’

Jeremy, if you recall, is their leopard gecko, who is currently with us but flying out to Romania on Monday. We had to take him to the vet on Thursday to get him a ‘Fit to travel Certificate’ which was interesting. He doesn’t like being disturbed in the middle of the afternoon, but he submitted graciously 😏

I’m glad his appointment wasn’t today, as he’s currently shedding his skin! The first inkling I got was I kept hearing bumping noises from the vivarium. When I looked his little ‘hide’ appeared to be moving on it’s own. Further investigation revealed that he was scraping himself against the sides! He proceeded to have a good old wander round, alternately scraping himself on his viv ‘furniture’ and pulling bits of his ‘shed’ off with his mouth and eating it. He suddenly changed from a dainty little eater of meal worms to a voracious ravening creature scoffing down copious quantities of what looked scaly tissue paper! He’s quiet again now, but Katie says to check round his feet later to make sure it’s all off. He has beautiful markings, and they appear much brighter after a ‘shed’, so he’ll be all shiny and renewed when they pick him up from the airport 😀

I managed to get a bit of footage of him, not very good quality, but you get the idea 💡

Fascinating isn’t it? I’m really pleased that I got to see it happening. I’ve got used to having the little fella around actually. I’m going to miss him, but he needs to be with his mummy and daddy lol 💕

Plus, we’ll definitely be visiting! (Not that we needed an excuse 😉)

Anyway, just before they left, I made both Josh and Katie a small birthday cake each as their birthdays are in August. Katie requested a good old Victoria sponge with jam and cream, and Josh is partial to a sticky toffee pudding cake with caramel frosting. Last time I made one for him, it had a ‘diglet’ on top (Pokemon) so this time I very hurriedly fashioned ‘dug trio’ – basically 3 diglets – out of chocolate fondant!