Goodbye Masterchef. Hello Alton Towers.

At a family party this weekend I was told off for not blogging enough.  My niece, (grown-up niece, that is) said she has a friend who has a job and two kids and still manages to blog every day.

70 Gilly steak pasties for the party.  With fennel dust pastry

Well I bloody well can't.  It's not that I don't have anything to say but I absolutely do not have the time.  It's now 10.45pm and Ged and I are still an hour away from eating as I've buggered up the BT connection at his shop while trying to e-mail my column to Northern Life (a day over deadline).  Then, when we've finally eaten I need to pack for Alton Towers.  That's pack for rain, sun, hail and wasp attack.  I never go anywhere without Piriton.

I'd had this fabulous idea that we would book our only day off school this year to take the kids to Alton Towers as a super special treat.  I had Tesco vouchers to pay for all of us and there would be no-one there because everyone else was at school.  Then I noticed  a remark on Facebook about Alton Towers being a bit busy as the high schools were taking pupils there as an end of term treat.  Oh joy.   Guess how many people are expected tomorrow?  16,000.  Yes that's SIXTEEN THOUSAND people.  If I had time I would cry.

I also need to tell all of you out there who kindly crossed their fingers and toes for Zoe, that unfortunately she didn't get through to the TV stage of Junior Masterchef.  I suspected all along that she may have trouble on two counts;

1)  The JM team asked Zoe how long it took her to make her trio of desserts and she said three and a half hours.  What she forgot to say was that the reason it took so long was because the oranges and lemons for the Sephardic cake had to boil for 3 hours!

2)  I had suggested, at the last minute, that Zoe serve her accompanying crème fraiche in a brandy snap basket instead of a bowl.  I gave her the recipe and she made a perfect basket.  The trouble was that she had only made it the once and when she was asked to describe how she made it to the JM team she sort of, well . . . forgot.  She knew she had baked it in the oven but forgot the preliminaries of mixing the flour, butter etc in a pan.

I suspect the JM people thought that I had made it all which is a great compliment but not true.  I have to admit to feeling ever so enormously relieved that we don't have to spend the next few weeks cooking every ridiculous item in Larousse Gastronomique.  I have given Zoe the option of proper training ready for next year but I suspect she may decide to give it a rest.  We'll see.