Mary and I like to partake in a mug of tea and a biscuit at around 3pm each day. This is a ritual we have followed for many years. It is also an act we have carried out for many years. And an observance, a practice and a tradition. All of the above.

On this particular Tuesday, we decided, quite at random, that instead of a biscuit, we would enjoy a slice of Ginger cake. Mary investigated the cupboard and found what appeared to be a squashed, mostly flat packet masquerading as a cake.

Mary extracted it from the cupboard and held it forth. I looked and held it fifth. But it was still squashed.

“What happened to that?” I enquired.

“It came like that in our shopping, it must have.”

I looked around the kitchen, deeply suspicious. For somewhere in our midst, was the crusher of cakes. That was the answer. It cannot have arrived in such a state from Ocado. Not possible.

But everything in the kitchen looked back at me with various looks but with one common denominator. Innocence.

“Wasn’t me,” said the kettle.

“Not me,” said the teapot.

“Ich war es nicht,” said the Tassimo machine.

I stared at it. “Why are you speaking Dutch?”

“Zat is not ze Dutch. It is ze Deutsch.”

“Oh, sorry. But why—”

“I am made by ze Bosch, yar? A Deutsch company.”

“Ah.”

Mary frowned at me. “That’s not helping. We still don’t know what happened to the cake.”

She was right. And since nobody was owning up in the kitchen (I reckon the Air Fryer looked dodgy) it had to be how it arrived in the shopping.

Mary proceeded to open the packet. Bits of Ginger cake falling out as she did so. But Mary is a pragmatic woman. She instructed me to get two bowels bowls from the cupboard.

She sliced two lumps of the smashed cake into each bowl and then told me to get the ice cream. Two scoops of that for each bowl and we had ourselves an afternoon treat.

“It must have been in the shopping delivery,” I said.

“Yes, I’ll check for crushed cake next time.”

I’m pretty sure I heard a titter from the kitchen. And I’m pretty sure it came from the Tassimo machine.

I finished my cake and ice cream and took our bowls out to the kitchen. There was an uneasy silence. I washed the bowls and put them away.

“You wanna watch it, mate,” said the kettle.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it starts with a crushed cake and then? Round teabags.”

Now that did worry me. Nobody wants round teabags.