The Devilish Aubergine and the Cake of Doom

I admit I have been a bit mean about some of the policies of the place I now reside and the people who enforce them. It's time to redress the balance today on this first day of October (by the way there is now exactly two months for you to start planning my 30th birthday gift) as today is the day of the Block Party, and wait for it, I'm impressed.

The Block Party is a celebration of the first anniversary of the opening of the retail space here. I'm sure I have mentioned before how limited that is, but obviously a cause for celebration for some. I am pleased as a Bank of America ATM has opened here. I bank with Bank of America and all the banks here charge you if you dare to take money out of another bank's cash machine. In fact, your bank charges you, and the other bank does too, usually $2 each. That's $4 just for taking out some cash. As you can imagine, I refuse to pay that. I would rather walk that extra mile to get to my nearest ATM, so imagine my joy, now I can get cash out whenever I want (so easy to please you see, so there is no need to overly worry about my birthday gift...)

However, I haven't quite worked out how to get into the building which houses the ATM, and the person who I squeezed in after even though she tried desperately to break my arm in the door, wasn't very pleased to have to share her precious ATM moment with a 'devilish aubergine' (Copyrighted to MC 01/10/08.)* Nothing was going to deter me though and it wouldn't be the first time that I had to use my sharp elbows as weapons.

So, the Block Party. The usual quiet waste land just outside the 3 shops (Subway, Peasant Pies, and a cafe-cum-wine bar) had been transformed with music, balloons, stalls, and people! Yippee. There were queues coming out of the door of the food shops, owing to the special offers, of which, of course, I partook. $2 for a peasant pie? Even with the exchange rate as it is, that is still only £1.13. I bought 4, not to eat, but to keep for later on in the week. People were buying them to eat then and there, the fools. I wanted to buy more but the shame cut me down. I am thinking though if I change tops, I can go back and buy however many are left.... we'll see.

I can get a pie any day though, the stalls were the real draw. Honey, Fruit, Veg, Bread, Cakes, all winking at me in the 29 degree heat. Today was pay day but it is meant to last the entire month so I settled on a Zucchini Almond Raisin loaf, spending what I had saved on the pies and then some. It weighs more than a brick so I would say it is worth the money. We have a visitor a week today so I thought it might be nice to have some tea and cake when she arrives. I asked the seller, who looked like a more fervent member of the WI whether it was freezable. She stated, loudly, 'honey, yes it is, if you can freeze it that is.' I raised an eyebrow arranging my face in the international quizzical look, wondering whether that was a reference to my extra few stones, mentally sharpening my tongue, then realising this is her sales pitch. I know that I am going to buy the cake, or bread as it is called, but she doesn't yet have the dollars in her grubby little paws (I actually hope they weren't grubby, and hands and workspace were adequately sanitised). The pitch continues, 'because it tastes so good, I doubt it will get to the freezer.'

She carried on with some tale of how she wanted to freeze a cake once but ended up eating it all. She means this to be the best advert, but of course it isn't. I hope there isn't crack in this cake, as I fully intend it to get to the freezer, and after what happened last time, well.. I paid the money, and she instantly moved to someone else. I had felt so special too. Then I struggled to carry my brick back to the flat. I actually had to stop halfway in the twenty steps to the door to adjust my grip.

I think I have actually put myself off this cake now having made it sound so unappetising; made with the unwashed hands of a charlatan, extra dense to break all your teeth, and full of crack. One slice or two Holly?


* I cannot take the credit for this wonderful turn of phrase - it is Mike's. I am dressed from head to toe in purple like a priest at Easter, clashing violently with my pink flip flops. Nice.