Cheat to...lose because you win some, you lose some

The saying is actually 'cheat to win' but that hasn't happened to me today.

In fact it has been one of those days where everything appears - call me paranoid - to have been against me.

First I decided (in my apparent infinite wisdom) that I would use the personal touch for a friend's Christmas present. I thought I'd make him up a hamper of all the things I know he loves - fine unique ales, different pungent cheeses, random cured sausages and some crackers to go with it.

I know I could just have gone out and bought him one, but that felt thoughtless.

So I have sourced some stinky cheeses, some wonderful ales and some fantastic sausages, cured meat etc but can I find a bloody hamper basket?... NO I CAN'T. I've trawled around more shops than I name, come away empty handed and with sore feet from being trodden on or run over with trolleys. *Sigh* I'm ashamed to say that I've now given up on the friggin basket and decided to just go with a box. It will have to do. I'm running out of time, but more to the point I'm running out of patience and my sanity will only take so much.

I thought I'd make his parents a nice fruit cake, but as we're not going to be home for Christmas we're winding down out store cupboard and freezer, so they both resemble Mother Hubbard's cupboard - EMPTY. Enter stage left Waitrose and Delia's time saving concept of 'cake in a bag'. Basically its all the dry ingredients weighed and measured etc for you. This seemed the perfect - if not lazy and not entirely ethical - solution to not wanting to go out and buy all the necessary bits and pieces to make a fruit cake. And it would have been if I hadn't got on the bus, which was late in minus temperatures (hello I got frost bite in places you're not meant to have frost bite waiting for it) to get to the shop ... and they didn't have any and weren't getting any more in.

Suffice to say I lost what little of my sense humour that hadn't frozen itself at the bus stop at that precise moment.

I came straight home after my wasted and pointless excursion in the sub zero weather and raided my cupboard and good old student vegetarian cookbook. It kind of worked.

I was disappointed (how unlike me) with the cake so I ate the corner and have elected to make another one in a smaller tin in the hope that it will be 'prettier' looking.

The moral of the story is...'don't be lazy and attempt to cheat or cut corners Natasha, cheating to win DOESN'T happen for you' plus to quote L 'proper planning prevents piss poor performance'

Cake tastes...okay though, but has done little or nothing to improve my mood;-(