I loved this cake from the very beginning . In thinking of it, working on it, in seeing it finished. I got lost in the song of a bird on a cold holly branch, in the splendour of a pear flower, in the elegance of a swan dancing on an iced lake, in the children’s dreaming eyes during Christmas time, in the beauty of its poinsettias and in the rhymes of its Victorian song celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas.