May 26 - Day 61 - Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? Shakespeare

You will have noticed that I didn’t cycle yesterday. This was not because of the rain (or I would have missed over half the days so far!). Instead, I hung my St Wilfrid’s jacket on the back of a chair for the day because it was Jeff’s birthday. He had sponsored me for the day - to stay at home - and as I’m being very particular about the number of days and miles completed, I said that I would not count it. I was also a little worried that other people might also start to sponsor me to stay at home - like the staff here!

You will see from the picture, that I did manage to bake him a cake. I know it doesn’t look much like a birthday cake but that’s because I had to remove the numbered candles in order to fit it in the cake tin (essential for it travelling to work in his van today). As Nadine Gordimer said, ‘People give one another things that can't be gift wrapped.’

It is thought that the Ancient Greeks introduced birthday cakes to offer up to Artemis, goddess of the moon, and decorated them with lit candles

In 18th-century, Germans introduced ‘Kinderfeste’. On the morning of children’s birthdays they would receive a cake decorated with the number of candles that added up to their age + 1. The extra candle, called the ‘light of life,’ represented the hope of another full year lived. It seems a pity that this part of the tradition has not survived

As lockdown restrictions continue to ease (we hope) and we are making plans to fully reopen the Centre when feasible, this would seem a good time for all of us to place an extra candle on a cake as a symbol of hope. If we could do this and value the gifts people give to one another that are often about presence, rather than presents, then we can all realise what matters in our lives and the true value of St Wilfrid’s over the past 30 years. And - if we lose a bit of that hope and the presence of others - we can always just eat cake!