Rude awakenings

When your husband gently wakes you at 4.30am there are a number of things that run through your mind as to his intensions. However the sultry tones of "come and help me bag my cookies" isn't what most wives expect!

Still, duty calls and in a manner most unlike me I leap out of bed ready to assist with bakery chores. Prior to bakery days if anyone had woken me at that time of the morning, and it wasn't to tell me my break was over on night shift, I would have replied with a sharp elbow and turned over grumpily.

The reason behind my darling spouse needing my bagging skills...? Our largest order yet - Crumbs sandwich bar in Bedford are launching at this year's river festival and have selected the bakery to supply them with goodies. It's a fantastic opportunity for us but has pushed us to the next level of what quantities we can manage at a time, coupled with the fact that he had baked a lot of it yesterday but it all sold!

Crumbs it's a big order:

• 50 Brownies

• 120 packs of Cookies

• 120 Pasties

• and 120 Baguettes

It takes Andrew approximately 1 minute to make a pasty, easy , no problem. 10 pasties takes 10minutes - easy to slot into any day's schedule... ... 120 pasties requires a little more planning - 2hours, that's a lot of pasty making, but fantastic to have such a large order.

By 6.30 we had everything ready, all bagged up and Andrew headed off to deliver. Now for the clear up and stand by for when they need a top up ... ...