Morning After the Night Before

Got the cake out and it needed another half hour in the oven, thus totalling three and a half hours. Left it to cool in the tin.

Donned my finery to attend the very excellent SE1 Christmas party, but tragically left my new mini camera in the taxi, so that's gone. I blame Madeleine: she broke one by dropping it in her bag, so I put mine in a little pocket at the top, and it slipped out when my bag was open in the taxi. Thank goodness I still have the one Dorothy gave me, though my camera wobble will be evident on snaps from this. Anyway the dinner was great fun and I met lots of people who had been posting, including a guy who mainly lives in Dhahran, where I used to live during the sixties for a short while. This gave us plenty to discuss, including Al Khobar, now a huge town, which was a tiny village with a couple of streets of shops when I was there, and the American compound where we used to drink 'hottles' of coffee and eat pine-nut stuffed poussins for lunch - all still the same now.

When I arrived home at midnight, I poured some booze over the cake which still wasn't properly absorbed this morning, so decided to slice the cake, pour more booze on and turn the slices around to absorb more booze. Had a tiny taste, and it's a bit like a very boozy bread pudding with masses of fruit. I shall freeze the slices later today.