[the baker in me - pt 2...]

Preface:  I must preface this post by saying two things.  1).  There are no pictures in this post.  Blogging crime.  You could go check out pinterest or google images if you need pictures though - I even linked you in and got you started.  Kind.  2).  This post has been sitting waiting to be published for a couple of months.  I'm a bit 'off' blogging at the moment but last night my friend told me she enjoyed my writing and she liked part one of this story so this is for her.  Her blog is here - she is amazing and you'd be privileged to nerd it up with her playing board games every Tuesday like me.  End (way too long) preface.



Dear future baker (ha and ha),

Back by popular demand (read: no one asked), part two of the great baking saga of my life.  Part one  left us with a completely eaten but not exactly... shall we say... appreciated pancake cake, made by yours truly.

I had a break from baking for, uh six months or so and then I ventured gently back into the kitchen with Paisley-Jades Coconut Iced Chocolate Slice (no bake) (amazing - you should totally give it a go.)  I very bravely took my slice to work, put it on the table and added a super welcoming sign saying 'Help yourselves!' It was a night shift, and it goes without saying that night shift equals eating fest.  The classic four am sugar low means I've seen nurses eat five day old brownie, mandarins, chip crumbs - whatever is on offer.

No one ate a single piece.

No. One.

I actually laughed out loud when I went in to check on my progress.
Five times.

So morning comes and slice goes back home with me.

Boooooo.

Anyway, don't feel sorry for me because here comes the lesson.  There's always a lesson.  Is there?  I don't know but that's what they say on fancy-pants blogs.  Anyway, this time there was a happy ending.

So I'm tired out of my head after the night duty and waiting at the bus stop for my bus, there is some kind of altercation taking place.  A tall man on crutches is asking a male nurse for a smoke.  Male nurse is refusing, tall is arguing - so on and so forth.  Male nurse is edging away, tall guy comes over to where I'm sitting.  His question to me is whether it is fair that male nurse refuses him a smoke.  I say that I agree with male nurse - he doesn't have a right to someone elses smokes. I say that people work hard for their money, and it isn't fair to expect someone to give you something they've worked hard for.  

See?  Lessons.  I am so a fancy-pants blogger.

Tall guy asks me for a smoke - I tell him I don't smoke and in fact I think it's gross and bad for you.  But I can give him some of my slice?  (See, it does tie in - I'm not just rambling!)  I tell him it's not great for you either but better than cigarettes and that I would be happy to offer him some, even though I worked hard for my money.  I had a paper towel in the container (for my work colleagues to use for their slice - sob) so I gave him a few pieces.

Tall guy was so happy!  He seemed to forget all about his smoke issue, which wasn't surprising given his next issue was that he had no money for the bus.  Awkward.  So bus driver lets him on anyway, and Tall Guy follows me to the back of the bus.  We sit together, merrily chatting about life, love and all things cake.

By the way, male nurse has completely abandoned me  into the loving arms of Tall Guy - even though I'm pretty sure I saved his life.  (Murse was going do-wn!)   Lesson #2 - don't expect anything in return for saving lives with cake.

Suddenly, my new friend TG (we're now on a nick-name basis you see) has a revelation.  He's realised that by giving him the cake, I stopped him from smoking.  He believes that while good for his lungs but not great for his hips, this cake means that he caught the bus which he would otherwise have missed because he'd have been smoking.  Also, the driver who would have been driving the next bus may not have been so kind as to let him on.  And what would he have done if the driver had declined him?  He'd have asked more and more people for more and more smokes and been more and more unhealthy and also still not been HOME.


Me and TG had revelations that day - his was that cake is better than cigarettes both physically, and metaphorically.

Mine was that things are not always as they seem.  Sometimes a tall man on crutches needs your cake more than twenty nurses at four a.m.

Metaphorically speaking, that is.

Learn that.
Love, never-judge-a-tall-book-by-its-angry-cover-me.