Having forgotten my good friend Mark`s birthday recently, last night I decided to make him a belated birthday cake. I duly bought the ingredients for a Victoria sponge and beat and baked for the next hour or so. When it was time to take it out of the oven, lots of the mixture had overflowed and was now glued hard to the oven floor.
I thought, never mind and lifted the cakes out of the oven. They looked rather nice. After ten minutes I was ready to transfer them to a place to cool. Unfortunately and in spite of greasing the cake tins liberally with butter, the sponges had stuck to the tins. When I gently tried to prise them out with a knife they just fell apart in many light and airy heaps of brokenness.
I was disappointed and briefly contemplated making a trifle but then thought better of it and decided to make another cake in the morning and give the cake disaster to the birds.
When I got up this morning, inexplicably, the once light and airy cake had mysteriously altered and now weighed about two stone. I don`t have any idea how this transformation has taken place and it poses many metaphysical questions for me….. I took it outside to scatter over the garden for the birds and watched with interest as some crows and magpies alighted on the ground to eat their early morning feast.
One by one, the birds lay down on their backs and started rubbing their bellies with their feathery wings. One of them has just knocked my kitchen door and asked if he could come in for a lie down and two others are currently on my grandson`s bike in the hall, pedalling away furiously.
I may shop buy and pretend I have cooked a cake for Mark, honestly Mark, if you read this, it`s worse than my home made cheese soup! 🙂
A night in with Nelly 