Who Has Birthday Offers? B & K Again - for a birthday! Tesco cake and other supermarkets

Problem
Where can I go for a birthday dinner? Where do I want to go?

Answer
I just want chicken soup. That means B & K.

Nothing fancy. Save that for later when the family are all together and we can justify Prosecco. (I have a birthday voucher from Cafe Rouge which lasts six weeks.)

So we go to B and K.

Salt beef in rye bread. A steak.

We decided to share a lokshen pudding.
It comes up with a candle for my birthday! (Yes, a member of my family told them, when booking the table, and again tonight.) We spent another £1 adding ice cream.

Lokshen pudding with ice cream at B & K. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

An Italian restaurant would have dimmed the lights and sung happy birthday. I had happy birthday sung to me earlier at a Toastmaster International club.

So now I've had a candle on a cake. The real thing - a real candle.

Facebook
I have had lots of wishes from all around the world on Facebook with emojis, little smiley faces and  icons of symbolic 2D candles and balloons. When Facebook first started doing birthday reminders I was rather doubtful how well they would be received. I won't go as far as to say cynical. I'm too nice a person. I will admit to being sceptical.

But it's lovely to hear from people on the other side of the world. The awkward thing is that when I send wishes East, the people the other side of the world are already halfway through their day. If you send a birthday wish at breakfast time in the USA it's already lunchtime in London. Sending wishes at lunchtime means it's already evening. going from the UK to Singapore it's an eight-hour difference.

Time Difference
To be sure your sent greetings arrive in time, you would have to send them today for tomorrow. If you are ahead of most of your family and friends and colleagues, you need to give everybody the 'official' (public and inaccurate) date before your birthday. That way half your goodwill messages arrive on the day earlier and all the belated messages arrived on the day. if your birthday happens to be on Christmas Day or New Year's Eve or a national holiday, you have to decide whether to always celebrate on the actual day, or the weekend before or after, or exactly one week earlier or one week later, to spread out the holidays and celebrations and dinner.

DIY Cake
I bought a DIY cake from Tesco to fit two birthdays this month. It was reduced to £2.50, the price of one piece of cake. Maybe I would have been better off with a piece of cook cake. But I really just wanted the look of a cake.

birthday cake from Tesco to decorate. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The red tube is the free writing device. I had saved a cake wrapper with the words happy birthday from a previous year.

The cake writing colour is very odd. The decoration on the top of the cake is purply pink, but the writing is in red. Neither a match nor a contrast. More like a clash.

Sponge cake never impresses me. I once had a lovely cake made with Thorntons chocolates on top. If you really care, add your own marzipan, or marzipan chocolates on tope.

If you have a birthday in your family, many restaurants which have several branches and a marketing department are keen for you to join their mailing list and will send you regular offers and one for your birthday month.

https://www.caferouge.com/offers

Supermarkets offering birthday cakes:
Marks & Spencer
http://www.marksandspencer.com/l/food-to-order/cakes/cakes/personalised-celebration-cakes-n-byr1n?OmnitureRedirect=birthday+cakes
Morrisons
https://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/category/Bakery--Cakes-Birthday--Celebration-Cakes/105651-102210-156705
Tesco Express had the cake
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=birthday%20cakes
Waitrose
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/browse/entertaining/cakes_and_biscuits/personalised_cakes?gclid=Cj0KCQjw1q3VBRCFARIsAPHJXrGshWyKeidHOCIUl5n95UcWmCYXSFUupK9ncWPjYTmurqcoHuAnQaUaAq3rEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CJqFwv6b8tkCFRCTGwod0vYFSA

Cake Comparison
http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/food-drink/11-best-birthday-cakes-marks-and-spencer-tesco-waitrose-colin-caterpillar-10512976.html

For DIY cake decorating pix and tricks:
https://yummyarts.com/CakeHacks/YummyArts-Infographic.pdf

Genuine Cakes

Window shopping at Genuine Cakes. Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

My supermarket compares prices but they wanted me to enter my email and I am inindated by daily updates from companies which fill my email box every hour so I declined.

https://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/grocery-categories/Birthday_And_Party_Cakes_in_Lidl.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have other posts on B & K and birthday cakes. Please share links to your favourite posts.