Fairy Cakes And Other Disasters

I am on holiday this week. I don’t expect that it will be that relaxing because I have a lot of worrying to do. Now what, you may ask, could I possibly have to worry about? Well – try this for size. The big England-based organisation that I work for is changing its focus. Changes in funding legislation mean that the current emphasis on providing particular services to the client group is going to cost the service-provider more. So they are pulling the plug on us and by this time next month I may be redundant.

It’s getting a bit late for the cavalry to arrive but we are still hoping we’ll be taken over by another organisation. And if we’re not then thirty colleagues and I are going to be signing on.

Today I have been doing what Bert refers to as ‘arsing about the house,’ and what I would describe as working my arse off cleaning up the squalor and mess created by him and the dogs.

Last night I came home from 25 hours in Spide City to find that he hadn’t washed a single dish. But he and his dogs did do the Moyle Walk so I suppose that was all right then. It was even all right that they brought home about ten percent of the Moyle Walk and distributed it around the house through the medium of their dirty boots and paws.

We were having Swisser round for supper so it was just as well that I was in the mood for chopping, dicing and baking. For starters we had my delicious parsnip soup. This was a double pleasure for me. The first pleasure was that Swisser loved it. The second pleasure was that Bert didn’t love it but had to eat it anyway for fear of looking like a philistine in front of Swisser. He doesn’t agree with any soup that isn’t a salty broth and thinks parsnip soup is far too sweet. With the soup we had rich soda bread with added cheese and herbs.

Then we had chicken casserole, which Bert created and it was pretty good too. We were having fairy cakes for dessert because they’re quick and easy but last night they weren’t just as quick and easy as they ought to have been.

The first problem was running out of butter but Bert solved that by phoning Swisser who was en route with a request to bring some. Meanwhile I assembled all the other ingredients. Swisser took her time. Bert said she’d probably got lost which has happened before. Take her off her beaten path and she gets very confused. Eventually she turned up full of tales about helping to catch a runaway white horse. She’s always got some crazy excuse. Anyway I stuffed everything in the Magimix and turned away to check the oven. Suddenly an awful thump! I turned round to find that the mixer had bounced off the worktop and had fallen into the kitchen bin. Disaster! But no. Miracle! The Magimix had dropped in the right way up and was still mixing away inside the bin. The bun mixture was saved. But we were still not out of the woods.

I scooped the mixture into the bun cases and popped it into the preheated oven. And waited. And waited. And waited. After 10 minutes I caught on that I was grilling the buns rather than baking them. So they didn’t rise. But I iced them anyway and we ate them every one whilst watching George Galloway prancing about in a shiny red leotard. Swisser and I both agreed that he’s not in too bad a shape for a fifty something but that he can’t dance for toffee.