When the Cheshire emerges...

Before I tell you about what I did out at the Annual Dubbo Show on the weekend there were a few days of madness in the lead-up... taking a long weekend anywhere always ends up feeling that you need two weeks to catch up to everything else in life. Unfortunately I've found that very difficult. Especially because I've had cakes to make.

I decided to enter myself as a baker in two cake categories for the show this year, in the basic butter cake and banana cake categories. The banana cake I was really unsure about entering for because I was unsure of how much time I would have when it came to it. But I did.

Wednesday morning wasn't smooth, as any of my Twitter followers may have realised on my feed. Got out of bed after an hour of being half-awake, realised castor sugar was at a horrendous low so had to make an early trip to buy some, then ran late to work without having done icing OR watched my weekly film for Shopper (Marnie, to be seen in next week's Review of the Week).

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I got home after work and dinner, put Emiliana Torrini's Me and Armini on for the first time and got down to it. Cakes had turned out pretty good, so a lot was riding on this icing to make them real contenders.

Cake number one: butter cake. The icing was runny and hadn't thickened all that much. This happened on a previous cake I tried to make, and here I got a baaaad result.

Cake number two: banana cake. This one was better. Only problem was that I ran out of icing sugar with just over half a cup to go. The consistency looked more like icing and while it tasted as lemony as gelato it just managed to spread all over and look okay. For me personally anyway.



Went to bed all done, put on paper plates and feeling okay about it. On a totally different note I wasn't impressed with Torrini. Jungle Drum was really the only up-tempo song on the album, not what I'd felt like listening to at all.

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Thursday. Cakes in by 10am to the pavilion. I WOKE UP AT 9.38AM. I somehow made it just before 10am (literally clothes on and out the door), and felt like a failure when I saw the icing and recognised others in the line-up who'd clearly done better with champion cakes and the like. Ugh.

Did I win? Hell no. Jess managed second in the biscuits and slices though which was excellent. We went to have a look on Friday night before I began my official volunteering duties. Saturday saw me help out with one of the horse rings by signing vouchers and writing winners' names for about four hours before a luncheon where we girls were the ones handing out food to sponsors (still got some so that was alright).

The official opening had us standing on a ute with Primary Industries minister Katrina Hodgkinson, who bravely offered to sing the national anthem after people were asked to stand only for there to be no music. Then Showgirl winner Kennedy, Teen Showgirl Sarah and I went around the track on a red glitter trike to wave to the adoring fans. Interesting day.

Sunday: Only official duty was helping judge Mr and Miss Tiny Tot 2012. The kids were absolutely adorable and it was a really hard decision all around. They were so excited to get presents just for entering. I got myself a strawberry pancake before and went on a ride after (yes, one that twists and turns as you go around upside down, I like those). There was also a dinner for the Show committee that I was invited to which was nice.

It was a really fun weekend :D