The day of the orange cake.

I hate cooking. It is the one chore I absolutely loathe with a passion. Personally I can take food or leave it; in one end, out the other you know. Not so the rest of my house. The starting head count is 7, not counting any of the extras or the cats. Everyone else adores their food. Some days we get to 'arsenic hour' & my brain just oozes down the drain. The last thing on my mind is food. I have a fellow feeling for the monks who sat on poles in the desert. I could do with a pole for one.

I taught all mine to cook young. That way no~one got to starve & they are all remarkably good cooks; better than I am because they enjoy it & keep their minds on the job at hand. The trawler crew rose up & called me blessed; with either of the twins aboard the food was at least edible.

It has not been without its moments though. There was the day of the orange cake. The one aspect of cooking I don't mind if I'm in the mood is baking. Baking is what we did when the rain poured down for weeks at a time & it was much too cold for running round in it outside. We baked cakes & cookies, bread & rolls & every so often we did the super duper time~consuming delux orange cake just for my husband.

Now even at 5 the Theasaurus & Dinosaurus were short. To reach the bench they had to stand on a chair each & take it in turns to pop the ingredients in the mixing bowl. I had one of the old 2 beater sunbeams. It was a lovely machine, though terribly old. Liddy was in the sling like a big eyed owl so when the measuring cup hit the floor it was quite an effort to bend down & pick it up again. In the time it took the boys decided to initiate one of their periodic conflicts when the sight of their own face staring back at them sent them into a frenzy. Push turned to shove & I got to my feet just in time to rescue the Theasaurus who was hanging from the bench top by his finger nails. As I shoved his chair back under his flailing feet his brother shoved the spatula through the blades of the moving beaters! I'm sure you saw this coming. Yep, the beaters exploded. There was cake mix on the ceiling. There was cake mix on the floor. There was cake mix on the walls, & in the sink & splatterd over the four of us. My son stared at me in wide eyed horror. He just knew he'd done something wicked! I collapsed on the floor & wept.

Hubby took one look, grabbed the car keys & took off to the mainland scouring every pawn shop he could find for another mixer ~ somebody's brand new, never been used, unwanted wedding present which he presented sheepishly on his return. Guess he really wanted that orange cake.