We had a booking for 16 breakfasts this morning, and I was planning on being around as back-up because 16 breakfasts is a lot to prepare and serve at one time when you have seven ingredients and only four rings.

I’ve only done the breakfasts once before and it ended badly.  Fortunately we had the regular…ah, there’s the problem. On Friday night I had a text saying “you know how we joked about me going off sick to avoid the 16 breakfasts…”. I’ll leave you to fill in the blanks. Fortunately we have a group of five cooks who take it in turns so a back-up was no problem. Well, actually it was. Two had other plans, one was already doing the pizzas at East Bridgford Show (with 25 kg of dough that I mixed on Friday night) and one hasn’t replied yet.

That all leads to one conclusion – I was in for a tough morning.

To put it in perspective, it wasn’t as bad as the start that the regular cook was experiencing, as she had texted early to tell me she was in hospital.  (I’m not being insensitive referring to the “regular cook” by the way – just respecting her privacy).

Nor was it as bad as the start they were having in East Bridgford.

No point worrying though, I had my trusty chafing dish ready, I had new fuel tins and I had the experience garnered from my last disastrous day in the kitchen.  I even had floral decorations prepared by Julia the night before. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turned out – nothing.

One of the neighbours pitched in to help with the egg cookery (not my strongest area), the party of 16 smiled and ignored the smoke and swearing that accompanies my breakfast-cooking antics.

You can tell all you need to know about my egg cookery from the fact that I dropped four poached eggs and was able to catch two when they bounced back from the floor.

They may have been slightly overdone, though, being lightly dusted with detritus from the floor, nobody had to test them out.

All in all, a successful day, though I forgot my camera so I don’t have any photos to prove it.