Hazardous pursuits

It's Rachel's baby shower on Saturday and all those jobs I was putting off until after we'd broken up from school suddenly need doing.  I'm on a baking mission and decided to start off with making a large madeira cake to ice as the main cake.  Which nearly ended up with me going to A&E.  I tell you, I bet Mary Berry doesn't end up a blood and cake mix splattered mess in her kitchen!  In hindsight this was a 'what a stupid thing to do' moment but we all know that such things often start of as 'a good idea at the time'. 

So I'd made the cake mix and poured it into the tin ready to go into the oven.  So far so good.  I'd left the spatula in the bowl after I'd scraped all the mixture into the tin.  Does anyone else hold their whisk beaters over a bowl and give them a final fling to get the last bit of mix to fly off to make washing up easier?  Well, that is what I did, only the whisk blades caught on the spatula and that started whirring round as well.  So of course the most sensible thing to do would be to put my left hand into that bowl while holding the whisk in the other hand, to try and release the spatula, wouldn't it?  Of course, it isn't, only an idiot would do that and still have the whisk blades twirling round.  I am that idiot.

Next thing I know, not only is there a spatula caught up in the blades but the little finger on my left hand too.  Ladies.  It hurt.  It hurt a lot.  There was blood.  There was pain.  I rushed to the sink and ran my hand under cold water and tied kitchen roll round my finger to try and stop the bleeding.  I was almost scared to look, I was convinced that at least part of my finger must be gone.  As it happens the blood was coming from a triangular gash on the underside of my finger.  My knuckle had taken the full impact and I wondered if I'd dislocated it.  But after careful inspection, all joints were moving properly but everything was swelling up before my eyes.  Fortunately we keep a sports ice pack in our freezer and I held that on it for about half an hour, then took arnica tablets and gradually the swelling went and the bruising came out. To give a clue to the force that was used, my husband had to bend back the whisk blades as they were so out of shape where my hand had been mangled!  Still, look on the bright side, I was excused washing up duties!
 
Deciding that the kitchen was a dangerous place to be, I turned my attention to wool related crafting. 

Guess the size of the baby belly.  Can you guess how many inches?  I'll let you know on Monday!

 

I had to return to the scene of the crime this morning to continue baking cupcakes and mini meringues.  I approached the whisk with some trepidation but I am pleased to report that no health and safety rules were broken today!