The Wrong Cake

And here’s Ella’s Wiggles birthday cake. Lovely isn’t it?

Except it’s not a Wiggles cake at all. No, it’s a Tigger birthday cake, which set me off ranting in every direction about the bloody inefficiency round here and how nothing works and nobody listens and how it’s no wonder nothing works when nobody listens.

Before I had Ella I didn’t understand the importance of getting the right birthday cake. I assumed that providing it had chocolate and candles and icing you were on the right track. Motherhood changes everything. It alters your mind so that you start to see things from a child’s point of view and you begin to realise why people camp outside Hamley’s all night to get their hands on that elusive toy their child has been dreaming that Santa will bring. You become a nutter.

I went searching on the internet weeks ago for a firm in Sydney who could make me a Wiggles birthday cake for Ella. In the event, one of the high street bakeries did exactly the cake I was looking for so I dropped by to order it early in June. At first they were reluctant to take the order but wouldn’t give me a reasonable explanation for this, except to say it was a “bit early yet to put it into the diary”. When I questioned what would happen if they did put it into the diary (I mean, would it erase itself from the page?) they relented and allowed me to put the order in and pay the $10 deposit, no doubt eager to get me out of the shop.

And then I went to collect it the day before her birthday and there it was, a Tigger cake. Completely the wrong cake because they hadn’t paid attention and hadn’t written the details down correctly.

And I was in such a rush that I didn’t notice and I paid for it and left the shop and when I realised what had happened and took it back, they said no, I couldn’t have a refund because they couldn’t resell the cake. No, they had no evidence I’d ever asked for a Wiggles cake in the first place and well, okay, they’d give me $10 back and throw in a free candle and some sparklers and that was the end of it.

So here it is, a Tigger cake. I hate Winnie the Pooh, I hate his saccharine American incarnation popping up everywhere from Huggies Nappies to birthday cards tying to worm his way into the affection of our children so the Disney Corporation can become even richer and even fatter. Winnie the Pooh and his friends are English, not American. They should get on with sticking their paws into honey pots and stop this Disney nonsense. They shouldn’t be allowed onto birthday cakes and especially not one I’m giving to my daughter.