A night out with ?

Well friends here I am, today is my day for ME and only me. I've been tied up organising a WI event (more another time) that I've had no time for 'me' whilst at home and when I did have time when we were away I had no internet access to bring you up to date with life @ number 6 so I'm going to take you back to  Christmas Day when I received this from D

How exciting but oh such a long time to wait. So many things have happened since then that I'd almost forgotten about it, although the voucher has been sat on my kitchen window sill for the last 4 months. However like with many things it was suddenly there. The baking friend was my very good friend A from Nottingham, who arrived during the afternoon. Off we went into Sheffield, treating ourselves to tea out in Leopold Square at Zizzi and before making our way to the City Hall. We found that we had seats very near the front so were going to get a good view. As you might imagine the place was mainly full of women, some of which had already had the odd drink judging by the ooos and ahhhs and comments which were being shouted out. If you think about it there are lots of innuendos associated with baking and they were not going to let Paul get away with anything. But back to the man himself, well I have to confess to being a little disappointed with show. He started by making pastry and turning it into an apple pie, showing a couple of ways to decorate the top. Looking around at the people there and bearing in mind that most would be there because they baked and were interested in improving their knowledge, an apple pie which they have probably made many times is not going improve it. He went onto to make a black forest gateau, again I guess looking at the ages round us many would have 'been there, done that'. Second half he made a Cypriot bread, that was interesting and then a wholemeal loaf with seeds in, which if you have his book and make bread you would have probably made. So a little disappointing. He told a lot of tales about Mary Berry, but I would have liked to know about the background to the Bake-off and heard stories about that, successes and disasters, do the contestants have talks on how to use the Kitchenaids and the other contraptions that they may not have at home and get chance to practice using them and the ovens before the contest. Despite him being a little disappointing A and I had an enjoyable few hours together and for me it was the start of the May Day bank holiday as the next day we were off to Runswick Bay, but more of that in the next post.