Building Blocks

The new neighbours in the apartment below have embarked upon extensive renovations. The crack of dawn every morning brings with it a deafening cacophony of drilling, crashing, pounding, sledgehammering, smashing – well, you get the idea. Interestingly, this continues for about an hour – just long enough to ensure that any chance of falling back to sleep has dissipated – and then they take a one hour break. As you might imagine, this has greatly endeared them to me.

Perfectly content to never see another construction worker again, it was with a sense of irony that I embarked upon a project to create a cake of a different building site. It was a 5-year-old who requested this particular cake for his birthday, wanting to commemorate the completion of a job he had seen in the works since his early years. He had witnessed the building, located across the street from his own home, springing up from an empty lot and developing from blueprint sketches on the outer wall to a concrete structure. It is definitely the most original order for a child’s cake I’ve ever gotten, and I presume one that was received with some puzzlement by his kindergarten classmates.

I had to take a field trip to the site to get all the details right. The workmen were keen to pose, and one hard-hatted fellow insinuated himself into the design, no matter how much I tried to keep him out. I guess he deserves his moment in the spotlight after so many months on the project.

In case you were wondering how the building turned out, here’s a picture of it upon completion. Thank goodness the boy’s birthday came out halfway through the construction process. I have no idea how I would have made thirteen stories!