Who'd have thunk it?

It appears that, despite previous years evidence to the contrary, the OH can actually recognise the occasional hint about Christmas presents. To wit, my biggest box yesterday contained this:-

It's the first instalment of a 12 month baking subscription. Every month you get a box with a recipe card, and pre-weighed dry ingredients, and any little odd bits you might need, like decorations. I had no idea such things existed until our friend K mentioned a few months ago that she had bought  one as a present for her aunt and I was so taken with the idea I started mentioning it now and again in conversation, saying what a good idea I thought it was. Quite a lot. I thought that as usual these hints had fallen on stony ground, but they hadn't. 

Not included in the subscription, but added by the OH as an optional extra - a set of all the baking tins you'll need for this years baking. Woe betide anyone who uses them for anything else. 

I was absolutely thrilled with this present. And as tomorrow is the OH's birthday I shall make the first cake then. It's a banana and cashew loaf and I thought I might need to wait a while to do it as we have no bananas, (yes, cue earworm, sadly) but on a trip out this morning in a vain search in the only shop open for miles around to get some cat litter we found some bananas that were definitely going soft, as required by the recipe. So we snatched them up. And no, we don't generally have cashews either, but they came in the box! Stand y for photos.