Ivy

Last Tuesday, H. and I had disagreed over ivy. I'd noticed the green dandelion clocks of their bud spheres on our Braidburn walk and pointed these out, but she insisted these weren't ivy, pointing out that the leaf shapes were wrong.

But I was right and she wrong. Ivy produces a different leaf morphology while blooming. Apparently the yellow-green flowers will turn to black berries in the winter for the birds to eat.

H. has been having a terrible time with ivy. As a master cakemaker, she's been working on the cake for Alex and David's wedding in a few weeks. The roses, arum lilies and jasmine are all been completed to her punctilious standards, but the ivy leaves keep breaking. Her botanical cake decorations, all made from royal icing, are things of beauty- incredibly naturalistic. She keeps frozen flower stems in her freezer to model from.

However, H. was correct about 'salt pig'. I thought this term another of her delightful malapropisms, like 'eggnut' for 'nutmeg'. But no- what I thought a 'salt pick' is a salt pig, which suits it.