after the kid interrupted me one time too many this morning, i sighed heavily, and drew the last tentacle on a bongo-drum monster. then i got us dressed, and took us up the street for a saturday promenade. there are many lovely things in the shops these days, but few as lovely as this vision in pink in the glass case at adriano zumbo patissier.

if you are lucky enough to know me (or, un-, as the case may be), you may well know how tediously indecisive i am. you may have been out shopping with me… hell, you may even have been in the changeroom with me, as i try on the smaller one, then the larger one, then the smaller one again, and the larger one (and so on…) until i no longer know which is which, and neither actually fits better than the other. or maybe you just know that i am the sort of person who might see a shiny thing in a shop, who will pick it up and fondle it and then walk away, and then return to the shop three or four more times over the course of a week — a month, even — walking away each time until it finally gets bought by someone else, in which case it was not meant to be, or i decide i do not need another shiny thing after all. and maybe now you know more than you wanted to, about me.

but today, this pink thing. it already had an audience when we entered the shop; countergirl was reading out loud a list of its components to a(nother) pair of curious girls. “creme de rose,” she said, “with lychees. and raspberries. and the macaron, though the macaron isn’t actually flavoured.”

i had only intended to buy a chorizo baguette, for lunch, but as i progressed along the counter, suddenly there were two pale pink rose macaron calling to me like sirens from the middle, and then at the end, this pink thing.

some people think that pink is a soft, girly colour, but really, it makes me bold and decisive. faster than normal, i had put money down on the lot, although i left pinky for later in the afternoon when i had a spare hand to deliver it safely home. and how pleased i am for this uncharacteristically bold decisiveness, for when i returned not quite four hours later, they had all sold out!

so this is what you did not get to eat: a rather wonderful biscuit, moist and chewy on the inside; more plump raspberries on the perimeter than i bothered to count; a slightly clotted creme filling, tasting faintly of roses — the perfume of it coming out of the box was far more intense; whole fat lychees hidden within. rather a monstrous end to such a beauty, but golly, what a frolic of taste and texture.