Doughnuts

LOS and Lady Sunshine are here, so I asked them what I should blog about.  Doughnuts, said LOS.  I don't often buy them - the last time I'd eaten a doughnut was shortly before their wedding, and that was last June.  But today, as they were coming, I bought doughnuts, and very nice they were, too.  But are they as nice as Sainsbury's/Krispy Kreme/Thomas's?  I may need to do some research.

We did doughnut research some years ago, in a World Cup year.  There is a mathematical mystery about bakery counters.  Most things come in packets of four or six, but doughnuts come in fives.  If anyone knows the reason for this, please tell me.  There were five of us, we all liked doughnuts, and they became a regular Friday treat.  

Anything that comes through the doors of The House of Stories risks being written into a plot.  That summer, as we watched the footie and ate doughnuts, I thought of a footballer who loves doughnuts but mustn't eat them because of his training regime, and he becomes obsessed with them.  That became 'The Doughnut Dilemma', and is still a popular Oxford Treetops title.   It all ends happily, and he does get to eat doughnuts at the end.

I remember a conversation from the Junior Common Room when I was at college, when we were all talking about the most boring jobs we'd ever done.  I'd spent one summer in a photographic lab, counting prints, pricing them, and putting them into packets.  All day, every day.  But I was outgunned by Tom, who spent twelve hours shifts making holes in doughnuts.  Yes, I thought he was teasing, but it turned out to be true.  He had a sort of biscuit cutter tool for punching out the holes in the doughnuts, which then got made into more doughnuts.  Sometimes they let him pack sandwiches for a change.

But who wants ring doughnuts anyway?  Give me a squidgy, jammy, sugar sparkly one, every time.  More jam, please.