We started the morning with Leila making Alex coffee, Alex’s role was to kneed the sourdough which had been brewing from the night before. L didn’t take pictures because he was doing it topless to avoid getting covered with flour. After the nights rest, the sourdough needed 10 minutes of active kneeling before another 6 hour rest to be baked in the eve. After an quick shower and getting dressed, Alex discovered a clue with his clothes (maybe unintended by Leila but perfectly placed) that required him to solve an anagram based around Owen Wilson movies – it was really hard especially as Alex was certain Owen Wilson was never in Armageddon. He put on a shirt though and started the trail around the house (super happy) and eventually found a closet with t-shirts from Leila inside (he’s wearing one now).
Leila meanwhile had been rushing around the house hiding more clues and making a beautiful potato cake for later.
The next clue was even harder, name the top 4 Chelsea’s goal scorers of all time, Alex had an initial go, but really struggled so he called up his dad, who he suspected would be better on the old generation. He was partly right, with his dad very excited by the challenge, he eventually got them with some clues, and then went off to call Uncle Phil, to see how he would have done. The clues led to an anagram of Gail and Alex found a pair of beautiful Gail Spinach veggie rolls in the fridge, his absolute favourite breakfast. He ate them outside with Leila and a glass of orange juice. They chatted to the Neighbours a bit, and Kay and Tony remembered it was his birthday.
The next clue, was around an object that doesn’t speak until spoken too – and he found A clue under the Alexa. The next, flawlessly set up by Leila led him to search Spotify and find a song, which was Ottolenghi by Loyle Carmer. That led him upstairs to the ‘Plenty’ cookbook his sister had bought him. He then called up his parents on a zoom call as they’d scheduled for midday. He said hi, and they were all dressed in white, Leila also joined in the call and it was super nice, and Mish and mum sung him happy birthday. They also tried two help with the next clue, nothing but ‘192’ and ‘150’ but they had no idea – much like Alex. He spent an age on this clue, going to the appendices, doing mini maths with the numbers, but it turned out that he had to look on pg 192 and for the ingredient with 150 grams. That led him to the sugar snap peas where Leila had cunningly hidden the chocolate pandas. His fam did help him on the next one though, it was Michelle Obama’s book ‘Becoming’ with L Frank Baum, writer of the Wizard of Oz, it led him to the Warhammer Munchkin Fu game that he and his sister used to play when they were really little. Meanwhile, unknown to Alex, Leila chatted to his parents about whether they were coming over. He also found a card from Kay and Tony, which was a build it yourself samurai in Chinese, he is super keen to make it, and they’re super generous and lovely – he’s really happy that they’ve made friends with the neighbours (apart from the ones behind who are super noisy).
Mish texted L saying they’d left home and were en route. L worried that they might come into the house, even to use the toilet though it was not the plan. So she did a really quick clean of the kitchen (which was a tip post potato cake and clues), and she was super happy that she did that. 5 minutes well spent. She also hurriedly attached 2 balloons and a banner to the door (which looked really ugly, but it’s hard to keep so much stuff a secret when you live with the person you’re surprising and spend 24hours a day with them). A’s parents turned up outside the door around 1pm, and he’d pushed back his next call until 2.30. They were initially going to stay outside The front door, but they decided that it might be possible for them to stay on opposite sides of the garden, and wear gloves – with staying outside hopefully preventing the Covid worries. They sat in the garden for maybe an hour, and had some rose wine and A opened his presents, lots of food based goodies, including a chilli plant, lots of pasta, a book on Burma, a mug and some 2005 vintage port. L showed A’s mum around the garden and introduced her to Kay who was able to answer all of his mum’s questions on the plants. A had to go inside to call his home friends who he’d scheduled a 2.30 zoom call with. We gave the fam, masks, new gloves and sourdough starter and they headed off to fix his grandma’s house.
Alex then wen to on a few hours of zoom calls, with his friends from home – ‘Sam, Ali, Umar, Lux, Ben, Julian, Raz, Danny, Chris, Pauline, Joe, Olesya, Vicky, Arnaud, Jamie, Antonio’, then with Hannah and Sam from Boston, then with Dave and Cam from McKinsey, then with Will, Matt and Dave from Girton, then finally with Pri and Neeks and Tim (who’ve just got engaged!). During this, because he had not time to eat, L made him a plate of her delicious potato cake which is super tasty and she had created based on 4 screenshots of an instagram story (pretty impressive). After Alex had finished him zoom calls, even L was tired, and she was only in the last one. They chilled out on the sofa and Alex did the last two clues: The first which was a picture of Father Christmas and 3 money bags – Santa Million, which led him to the wine cupboard, where he found a jumper from Leila and a blanket with sleeves from his sister (he’s apparently wearing it backwards).
They finished baking the bread (Which required some further attention and watering of the oven) and had a beer tasting in the garden, from a local brewery – Muswell Hillbilly – that Leila had found a sourced to deliver to the house. They sat in the garden in dark and had a taste each, which was delicious and super good, on coming back in Alex posed next to all the goodies that he’d be given for his birthday from both Leila and his family. Then L sent Alex upstairs for the second to last surprise whilst Bernard (their sourdough and child) was in the oven. She brought some Sushi upstairs because she thought that would be what he wanted to eat on his birthday dinner. They ate it whilst listening to Joohee’s saxophonist friend on NPR’s Tiny Desk. Then they went downstairs to eat some Bernard which they were both really impressed by given it was their first attempt at baking sourdough, and paired it with butter, olive oil and balsamic.
After dinner, L sent Alex up again for the final mini surprise which was brownies baked by Liyana and candles. They also ate his mum’s Banoffee Pie which was excellent (A scraped off the chocolate for L) and then headed to bed, pretty tired but also happy.
It was one of the nicest birthdays (and possibly the most personalised) he’s ever had and he loved it, he was super happy and had had the best of days.
Coffee, Wine and Isolation 