In which I tell you all about Kevin....

Yes, it’s time we talked about Kevin….

Kevin has been living with us for nearly two years now.  He is exceptionally quiet, doesn’t demand endless goes on the Wii or new games for his DS. He doesn’t eye my mealtime offerings with suspicion and request the presence of a poison-taster.  He sounds like the perfect child, but he is, in fact, a pain au chocolate and he lives in my bread bin.

Here’s the photographic proof.

Kevin - my adopted child

It all began when my son decided that he wanted something sweet to eat. I am a bit partial to a cake myself and when my supermarket aisle-weary gaze alighted upon the packet of pain au chocolate buns, the deal was sealed.

These wouldn’t go stale in the bread bin because they were pre-packed inside the main pack AND they would slot quite nicely into a packed lunch box too.

Over the course of the next week, my son ate all of the little buns, bar one.  It had slipped behind a crumpled stash of empty loaf packets and lay there quietly, undisturbed until I decided to clear out the bread bin….some days later.

Alright.

In the spirit of blogging openness, I admit..........it was a couple of months later.

Like a modern day miracle, the little pain au chocolate had not the slightest blossom of mould on its slightly shiny surface.  How amazing, I thought. My next thought was, however, how hellish! What in the heck have they put into this cake to stop it from going off?

And so my experiment was born: How long before the cake went mouldy?

My husband, initially cynical about my reasons for keeping an old bun in beside his daily bread, soon got into the game and, within a few weeks, the pain au chocolate had been christened Kevin.

He has endured two Scottish Summers and yet remains, Lulu-like and unblemished, in the back of the bin.

I have become rather fond of Kevin. He has assumed the proportions of a confessor priest, which is not bad going for a 2 year-old cake.  As I rifle the bread bin for scones and slices of fruit loaf to eat on the sly before my son gets in from school at 3pm,  Kevin sees my frantic scrabblings and says nothing.

But I know he knows.  So I get good Catholic A-level guilt from my relationship with an old bun.  Excellent.  I’m not even a Catholic.

Today Kevin is still with us. Still mould free.  One day soon, my experiment will be called to a halt, probably by a visiting 10 year-old raider who will unsuspectingly rip into him looking for a sugar hit.  I do hope that no teeth are harmed - nor tetanus required - in the process.

He shall be buried in the garden, next to the mice, with full honours.

And, to paraphrase my national bard, the next time your thoughts run to sweet things in the supermarket, remember Kevin in the bread bin.