The cooks are apparently busy

this week. Scones, Anzac biscuits, fruit cake and sponges are coming out of their ovens.
I won't get to taste any of this. It doesn't bother me at all. I am not particularly interested in scones or cake or biscuits. I rarely cook any of them. My mother made "cheese scones" occasionally. People liked them but they would not have won prizes at a show as they were simply flung together and dumped unceremoniously in clumps of dough on a tray. She never bothered to roll them out. 
Once a year she would make a ginger sponge for the Senior Cat for his birthday. That was it.
Any cake making in between was done by us - when we were allowed in the kitchen. Middle Cat is an expert in chocolate cake - as long as it comes out of a packet. The Black Cat could probably follow the instructions on the packet. Our brother would be more ambitious. He does quite a lot of the cooking in his house. I doubt he would bother with cake unless it came out of a packet but he would try scones.
I thought of all this as I was reading an article in the state newspaper this morning about people entering the cookery classes in the annual state show. They apparently try the same recipes over and over again. One man takes his chocolate cakes into his work mates to taste test. I doubt other items made by other people are wasted either. Someone, somewhere is eating them. 
I know a young teen who is entering two items in the section reserved for schools. Her schoolmates are undoubtedly the beneficiaries of her efforts too.
And I also thought of all those country women I knew when I was a kitten who would just smile at the idea of having a temperature gauge on their trusty Metters wood  burning stoves. They simply opened the oven door and put their hand in and out as quickly as they could. Hot enough? No? Add a bit more wood to the fire chamber. Hot enough? Yes? In it goes. It will take getting the vegetables on to cook for it to finish baking - and other such measures.
Their sponge cakes were light. Their "patty cakes" (now called "cup cakes") were perfectly rounded. The shearers' sultana cake always seemed to have the sultanas evenly spread throughout.  That was the way it always seemed to be. They were experts.
I suppose it depends on how often you cook cake. I have cooked cake once this year.
I will not be entering anything in the cookery section.