Today, as I always do on your leonine birthday, I woke up feeling a bit perturbed. Nothing specific, it’s just that when you die you really die don’t you? No matter how much I try to trick my mind to believe that we are just busy in our lives right now, and that I’ll probably see you on the weekend (of course you’ll want to celebrate, you big show-off) I still know. Somewhere back in there, nice and deep, is a box with “Hayls” engraved on the lid in fancy-as-fuck script, and mostly I prefer to keep it shut. It’s not dusty though, I pick it up and turn it over in my hands often. I stroke the grain of the wood and trace the lock with my finger. I smile as I think of some of the treasures inside, and as long as I don’t open it, all is well.

But some days I am brave enough to flip open the latch and open that box a tiny crack. Snatches of conversation sneak out and hit the air and my heart. I might hear one of your catch-phrases (cats of Australia, vertebone, heeeeed, muff ’em Liam, big girl, a Billy Ray Cyrus) or maybe I’ll hear you laugh. I’ll definitely hear you laugh- you were always laughing weren’t you? Perhaps you’ll call me waif. I know I wasn’t called waif  in a good way, but I liked it anyway. You’re the only one who ever called me that (for obvious reasons), and I felt very Kate Moss. (I could use a bit of that now that I have an expanding menopausal arse, thanks.) Maybe you’ll call me a bogan for one of a myriad of transgressions, tell me how to eat my meal (chef has already seasoned that) or instruct me to drink some kind of weird cherry beer.

Some of our ill-thought out, fanciful plans might slither out, or if I’m lucky I might get an image- one of you prepping a meal, trying on a new A-line “cutesy” skirt, or getting ready to jump in the pool for our laps.

I might get your smile.

The thing is, I know exactly what’s in the box, so I don’t know why opening it is so scary.

Maybe it’s because even after all these years, knowing what’s in it and keeping it pristine-closed is safer than admitting that all I have left of you is some ashes and the contents of the box. I guess I want something more, which seems both selfish and just right at the same time.

I’ve been waiting all day today for someone to post on your page. I wanted everyone to remember that it would have been your birthday and you would be expecting presents and phone calls and cakes, but I wanted them to remember all by themselves. I wanted them to miss your smile as much as I do.

It seems they do. Is it weird or cruel to feel comfort in that? I don’t know any more.

Kaye posted a pic on Insta and you’d love it: you look both happy and hot (not in temperature). I think you’d rate yourself. Your hair looks fab.

Happy what would have been your birthday Hayls. I guess it still is your birthday, but it doesn’t quite feel the same saying that without you here in person. I ate cake. It was too sweet, but I put it on top of the weird stomach-wrench I already had, and it sat on top. I guess it will cover up the ache a bit shortly, the sweetness mixing with the sad and making something digestible. I guess that’s why you nourished so many people. You were healing them. Healing us.

Thank you for all of the times you did that. Even when we didn’t know we needed it.

Luv ya.

So you wanted a post about cakes, eh Chrissy?
**Warning: Rude content**

Once upon a time we went to America and we were presented with a cake so vile and oh so anatomically correct that I suspect all of the women in the room immediately ran to the bathroom with mirrors and torches to compare their nether-regions to the magnificent glistening icing, that was representative of a trio of assorted female genitalia.
On a cake.
There was a jaunty little script at the bottom that said, “Welcome, ya bunch of *#%$.”

I’m not sure what the collective noun for such a gathering is, but I think it should either be a committee, or a cosy.
A cosy of
(The word that I dare not write, lest my Mum read this post and I be castigated.)

Every inch of my being wants to show you the photo of said c-cake, but I dare not, lest this blog be labelled as porn, and I am relegated to the literary internet dustbin.

The photo of this cake is neatly tucked away in the back of the photo album labelled “USA 2003”, and I delight at the thought that one day when I am all but dust, some descendant will look through the blurry, bland images of Denver and Vegas and Hawaii and come to this final little pearl and wonder, “What the fuck was that all about?”

They might flip back through the photos, trying to glean some hint as to why there ever was such a cake, who made it, and what happened to it after that first staged snapshot.

Well in case that never happens, I’ll tell you the story.

Not about the how and the who, but what happened next:

Everything happened.

Every single thing that you might imagine happening to a cake festooned with a cosy of vaginae, happened.

At first we were shy to approach her. As if she might bite, or something even worse. Then as the evening wore on, and we gathered our courage from the bottom of our Bud Lights, we became more enamoured of her subtle curves. We started to sidle up to her, make a few lewd inferences, and the boldest among us even tried to touch her up… There may have been a Donald Moment or two.

The rest of what happened is a little fuzzy, but I will tell you, that in the morning there was a pile of crumbs were the cake had been, no-one seemed to know where the the members of the cosy had gotten to, but Stanly The Pug had a dollop of pink icing on his nose that looked suspiciously like a clitoris.

I just hope that there were no American Pie moments.

…From The Ashers

I was all over the place today.  Crying and not crying.  A throat full of burning lumps like held-back vomit.  Eyes hot and sandpapery.  And that feeling, the heavy-tight feeling, clenching the suboccipital muscles into bundles of gristle, with that impending sense of doom.  But the doom wasn’t impending.  The thing of dreadful fear had already happened.  Still, it was hard to fully inflate my lungs.

I called on BabyMac to find a perfect birthday cake to bake for my friend, ‘cos BabyMac knows a thing or two about sucking the good stuff outa life.

The cake is called Anne.  She’s big and sweet and full of goodness.  Four eggs from happy chooks.  Lashings of magnificent butter worth it’s weight in gold (no, really, it costs the same as gold).  And a shit load of sugar.  My mate would have loved Anne.  Anne has quite a heft about her.  She’s not for the faint of heart.  And my friend was not faint-hearted.  She was a tough bugger.  And she didn’t mind a cake.

So I baked Anne, and I shared her around.  I gave some to my family, some to my neighbours and some to a gorgeous friend.  I didn’t tell them why I’d given them some Anne to feast on, but they sent me back loving messages, and pictures, just the same.  Anne is that kind of cake.  She makes an impact, and I think she likes to get around a bit.  Anne likes making people smile, making them rub their bellies, and push back their chairs as they lick her last crumbs off their plate.  Anne reminds us of what it’s like to be alive, and nourished, under this big wide sky of potential.  Anne reminds us to savour all of the flavours of life, to taste as many different things as we can, and to devour every last morsel.

Turns out, Anne is a lot like my friend.  I think they would have liked each other.

Happy Birthday Hayls.  I saved you a bit of Anne. Bon Apps.

…From The Ashers xx