It was a different world once I began my cake classes and I loved it! It was a world where you talk with your hands. I was clumsy and messy at first and did not have the nimble and quick hands of my friend that introduced me to cakes. She came from an Art background and was good at drawing, painting and modelling.

I had to force my normally cerebral brain into making my hands do the talking and oh it was a messy business! My flowers were clumsily created and looked ugly. I would cast envious glances at my more able class mates and wonder at what I was doing at these classes.

But the stubborn person in me persevered as I tried to bend sugar to my will. But one thing I did was to try to produce my own original ideas sugar as a medium.

It was from going to college that I learnt about the cake exhibitions. My friend warned me that they were addictive and to not take a lot of money. I did not believe her till I went.

The exhibitors come from all over the world to sell the latest sugar gadgets. Cookie cutters machines, pliable sugar paste that would half your time, baking tins that would mould your figures, rolling pins that would create the most delicate of designs. I fell hook line and sinker and blew my budget! The exhibition years would start at Squires Kitchen in Farham on to Cake International, then to every other exhibition.

It was at the exhibitions that I realised that beauty could indeed be created with sugar!

I loved it all!