Will work for muffins...

Horrible horrible shock...we were in the middle of a home ed cooking session making Banana Muffins with the children when Fin suddenly looked out the window and said someone was coming.
We live out in the middle of nowhere so there aren't many random people about so I thought it might be a parcel being delivered (I am expecting a 'new' RED laptop...yippee!) and carried on with what I was doing.

But then Fin called that it was Nina, the children's French teacher. I knew it couldn't be Nina as she was due in a week's time .....but OMG when I looked out the window it WAS Nina wrestling with the gate (we normally have it open WHEN WE ARE EXPECTING SOMEONE!!!) and we all looked at one another in absolute horror...Not only were we in the middle of a cooking project, we hadn't done the french practice we normally do before their lesson, but - quel horreur - worst of all, the house was absolutely SHAMBOLIC!
A quick look at our home ed room (aka our sitting room..) to weigh up the scale of the problem flagged up: acorns scattered all over the room (used as Units in a maths session),  a Double Action Heavy Duty Push Pull Pump (used to launch some homemade rockets), a stomp rocket (ditto), foam packing material (some of which Fin had made into a pair of vegan shoes with some brown yarn), Pony's tutu  which was waiting to be mended, stacks of books (always), Blush (a pink stuffed snake from a visit to High Lodge Forest Park), catalogues from the wholesaler we use for our little shop Veganation , a biscuit tin (full of homemade peanut butter cookies but still no reason for it to be on the sitting room floor!), a gluestick, a necklace, a plastic model of a unicorn and a wind-up mouse (don't know)...

But it is when you are REALLY up against it that you find out what you are REALLY made of...and it is amazing what you can get done in 45 seconds...we were thrown a lifeline when Nina came to the door and asked if we were expecting her ...("Yes, of COURSE!!") so then she went out again to bring her car onto the drive (which took her about 52 more seconds..) so we were able to get loads more done...
Anyway, the children had their impromptu French lesson (Nina rather embarrassed by then as had worked out that she was a week early!) while the Banana Muffins were cooking...
Although Pony would beg to differ, we think these muffins are delicious - must give credit for them to my BF Paula (of soon-to-be quirky knitting blog 'The Purple Cricket' fame...). The absolutely brilliant thing about the muffins is that they are made with all those brown spotty bananas that our fruit bowl is always full of...sigh..
And best of all, because the french lesson had been so ...unexpected..we didn't have any cash in the house to pay Nina, so we sent her on her way with two muffins instead!