Bella's Christmas Bake Off Read Online Free PDF

flour into butter, the grit of sugar, the heady fragrance of chocolate, sweet vanilla and the warmth of ginger. But most of all the recipes brought back the sheer excitement of two little girls – best friends – waiting for Christmas. It was a time of carol singing and jingle all the way – life was all glitter and sparkle for those little girls back then...what a shame it fizzed away within a few short years.
    I wrote the recipes and sent the cards as much for me as for Bella. The older we get the more we think about the past and I wanted to share my memories with the only person who had really known me apart from Mum.
    Every year I’d added all my contact numbers, photos of the twins and snippets of my life – trying to reach out to my old friend. And every year I was disappointed not to receive a response. But Bella was now a big star and probably had someone else read her Christmas cards. I hoped Bella would eventually forgive me and naively thought that if we could just meet up again, we might be able to carry on where we’d left off at eighteen.
    But Bella had obviously chosen to cut all ties with her past. I didn’t blame her – but it still hurt. I just wanted to tell her that her secret was safe with me and I would always be her friend.
    I turned the volume down on the TV, even in the programme trailers Bella’s tinkling laughter grated on me this year. I just couldn’t embrace her Christmas baking plans as I had before – because this year her perfect Christmas seemed more unattainable than ever – just like her.
     
    N eil and the kids used to laugh at me and my own ‘Christmas tradition’ of recording ‘‘Bella’s Christmas Bake Off’ to get in the mood from early December. They knew we’d been friends in another life but didn’t really understand how Bella was the link to all the Christmases of my childhood, shared with my parents now no longer with us. Those memories of Christmas baking were so vivid for me still – Bella and I weighing out the almonds for marzipan, stealing mandarin oranges from the bowl and sharing their sweet, tangy fruit when Mum wasn’t looking. ‘I know what you two are up to,’ she’d laugh, the spray of citrus permeating the air, and exposing our crime. Mandarin oranges were only ever around at Christmas when we were young and like everything else they were scarce in our house. But Mum never told me and Bella off for helping ourselves, and even now the sweet, citrusy hit of a juicy Mandarin orange says Christmas and Bella to me.
    I was smiling to myself about this when the phone rang. It was Jamie, my son, telling me he’d been invited to his girlfriend’s in Kent for Christmas, I told him he must go and though I was disappointed I tried to hide it, thinking it would just be a girly Christmas with Fiona and I.
    Then the following day, Fiona called to say she’d been offered the chance of a lifetime to go on a research trip to the Arctic over Christmas with her boyfriend Hans. I pretended to be elated for her and urged her to grab the opportunity, avoiding any references to her father. When she said jokingly ‘sorry to leave you on your own with Dad,’ I just laughed.
    ‘We’ll have a late Christmas...our own special Christmas,’ I said, desperately trying to cover up the sound of my scorched throat and my eyes threatening tears. I ended the phone call quickly saying my Christmas cake was burning and Fiona said she loved me and hung up. They had no idea their father had left, they never asked to speak to him when they called home which was telling - he’d never really been present in their lives. The only silver lining to the grey cloud of spending Christmas alone was I wouldn’t have to tell the kids about our break up until after Christmas. I was determined not to say anything; I didn’t want them to feel obligated to come home just because I was alone. I put the phone down after talking to Fiona amazed at how life can change in minutes – and I’d