Exciting scientific news from Moscow!

After extensive testing in your correspondent's Moscow home, the results are now in.

There is no sound - not the ringing of a doorbell, the increasingly infuriated calls from a mother, the demands from a brother, the smashing of plates or glass, or the turning on of the televison or X-box - that penetrates a child's closed bedroom door and results in their speedy appearance downstairs in the kitchen quite as successfully as the noise of freshly-baked cookies being peeled off baking paper.

So now you know.

A week in tweets: #ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime

The continually falling snow here is just too too depressing at the moment, so in a bid to cheer myself up I'm posting using Jo's 'Week in Tweets' prompt again (here's my offering from last week).

This time she took as her theme the hashtag #WhyIMovedToBristol. Now, yesterday evening I mused on twitter that I might set up a new blog called 'It Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time' (relax Husband - never going to happen) and whilst I'm not quite crazy enough to fuel my internet addiction in that way, it did seem a shame to waste the title - so I've used it here as a hashtag instead.

All the events in the following tweets are based on actual happenings - just not, perhaps, in the time frame depicted below...

Monday: A near miss with a Boy, a cookie, & a nut allergy. Decide 2 eschew shopbought & make own cookies from now on. #ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime

Tuesday: In high dudgeon announce cafeteria boycott to Boys Headmaster from top of Mount Self-Righteous. #ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime

Wednesday: Find have no sugar to make cookies, head to shops to restock. Am caught in traffic; late for Boys pick-up. #ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime

Thursday; Make 1st batch of cookies; delicious. But Boys refuse to eat them as they contain raisins. #ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime

Friday: Make 2nd batch; also delicious. Boys love them and refuse all other forms of sustenance except pizza. #ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime

Saturday: Get on scales and discover the *cough* 1 or 2 raisin cookies I saved from bin are still with me: #ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime

Sunday: Find Husband-sized hole in cookie jar; now none left. Go to make more - but have run out of sugar... #ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime

Jamaica Ginger Cake, sticky toffee pudding, and Rusty Lee. What's not to like?

I love to bake, but my repertoire is limited to a few favourite recipes; chocolate cake, shortbread, vanilla sponge, and fairy cakes, and I don't often have the time to get round to making those. And shop-bought cakes, on the whole, are not great in Russia. They look purty, no doubt about that, but to my British tastebuds they are usually too sweet, too creamy, and just don't hit the spot. Add our family's nut issues to the mix, and unfortunately they aren't much of a fall-back for us in Moscow.

So when I was given the chance to write a sponsored post for McVities about their newly repackaged Jamaica Ginger Cake, it brought back a host of delicious memories and made me long for it to be available over here. Not only is it delicious to eat straight (or even - gasp - buttered), but I have been known to use it to make a cheat's sticky toffee pudding by simply slicing it up and pouring toffee sauce over the top before baking it in the oven...

Anyway, enough about my day dreams. Sigh. Visit the official Jamaica Ginger Cake Facebook page for the chance to enter a fabulous competition to win a 'dream holiday' and to see the fabulous Rusty Lee (remember her? More importantly, remember her wonderful laugh?) making delicious recipes with ginger cake. Or otherwise, just watch the clip below before adding the ingredients to make Rusty's truffles to your shopping list...

This was a sponsored post...