Sugared almonds

 I had a very special guest here for lunch yesterday.

It was Simon, otherwise known as Stuck in a book, up in Edinburgh for a few days and kindly paying me a visit. We have met before, but that was a brief hello in Oxford when he was working for his finals and I was attending a 'do', so it was lovely to have a proper chin-wag and then go book-shopping with him.

But look what he kindly brought me: a set of Bloomsbury Group bookmarks to mark my place in these lovely books.

Several of these books have already appeared on these pages, most notably Henrietta's War of course, but I think Simon is due hearty congratulations for helping to bring Miss Hargreaves back from relative obscurity, and in doing so for giving those of us who have read it great entertainment.

As to 'sugared almonds', well the bookmarks (and their respective book covers) have quite a sugared almond feel to them in real life, and for pudding at lunch yesterday I made Simon a sweetly tart almond-based cake!