My mother informed me by text the other morning (at the crack of dawn, and my alarm hadn’t gone off yet) that if I was going to make the Christmas cake in August!!! I had promised my grandmother last year, and I had better get my skates on. As there were no kisses after the text, I assume she had been up all night thinking about it and got herself in a state. Why?!
Now, you might be wondering why I would promise such a thing to an elderly lady when I neither cook an evening meal nor own scales, a mixing bowl or a wooden spoon. Well, I can only put it down to the three glasses of sherry I’d joined her in after Christmas dinner and the fact that my maternal grandmother and mother have memories like elephants. Damn them.
So, with the screen still alight on my phone and some free time until three o’clock (late lunch date with Mario in Marble Arch), I got up and resolved to keep my promise. Within twenty minutes, I was on the pavement outside my building, turned up the collar on my Burberry Mac and set off for the supermarket. My closest store is Tesco, just off Oxford Street, and I can honestly say since I moved into my apartment, I have never set foot in it. That’s not to say I have never shopped for myself (I was a student once!), but one gets out of the habit.
The shopping basket hung over one arm, which I made for the home baking section. Within five minutes, I had picked up a second basket. Ten minutes after that, I’d emptied both into a trolley. Not only did I need sugar, flour, eggs and fruit, I also needed a new kitchen! By the time I was heading for the checkout, I had been bashed at the heels five times by psychotic London shoppers and hidden from another English escort on a GFE date with our regular client. As the lady rang the shopping through the till, I was astounded to see I had spent over a hundred pounds and could have bought a ready-made one for £7.99! Grumbling loudly, I hailed a taxi to take me home.
By now, it was 10.30 am. I felt like I had done a day’s work in two hours. The prospect of actually cooking the thing left me nauseous. Then I had a brain wave! I have a chef-client called Paul, who I haven’t seen for a while, and I picked up my mobile to make a date with him. I promised him a homely GFE one night this week that involved wine and cooking a deux. He even said I’d wear a frilly apron and high heels in the kitchen … all he had to do was bake me a cake.
