Seeds, Settlers, and St Honoré

Alan and Ann were with us for the weekend, as I alluded to last week. The Gateau St Honoré was a great success. We modified the recipe somewhat, filling the choux buns with crème pâtissière, and I've now bought a piping bag, so the filling of the gateau was neatly piped. I didn't quench the spun sugar, so that was still molten and spinnable, too. All in all, very good.

And then the cat happened. We (stupidly) left the gateau unattended for all of a few minutes, and the custard monster spotted it, hopped onto the sideboard, and helped himself to the (obviously delicious) crème pâtissière. As a result, it was no longer photogenic (sorry), although he'd taken a relatively small amount, so we repaired it and served it (Liz got the catted bit*).

*He's her cat, in these circumstances, in the same way that Domino's mine at three in the morning when he needs the loo, but wants company finding the litter tray in the dark. His superior night vision notwithstanding.

We played two games of Settlers (an entirely epic Greater Catan plus Cities and Knights, which lasted about seven hours), and a more normal Cities and Knights of a couple of hours. Greater Catan was, as normal, an excellent treat, and worth the set-up time!

After they left this afternoon, we've also sown some centranthus and achillea seeds, and will be putting a pack of Leymus arenarius seeds (blue-grey clump-forming grass) in the fridge to pre-chill. They'll be sown in about six weeks.