Homebaking.....does anybody else have this problem?

[merciasounds]

I do a load of baking, and people come around (not the people I baked for) and before I know it, all my stuff is gone! Take this morning, I made a tray of traditional Cornish Pasties (potato, onion, swede and skirt beef, salt and pepper, knob of butter to keep everything moist) and a Victoria Sandwich sponge cake with my homemade lemon curd and fresh whipped cream to sandwich it together. I have three neighbours come round - ooh those look lovely....how do i say no, you can't have one/a piece?

[ummmm]

Just say you've cooked them for someone else...

[redcrx]

of course you can say no.

"Im making them for a family picnic"
"its to take to the in-laws at the weekend"
"im freezing them for dinners when im busy"

etc etc etc.

[redcrx]

or when they say they look nice say
"thank you"
rather than "try them"

[merciasounds]

I didn't really explain itvery well, I feel mean if I don't offer, coz they're all on their own...the one guy is 77 and lost his wife just before christmas...and says things like...'my dear wife used to bake'...Miss P as I call her is a sweet old thing, church organist, spinster, cming round for a donation for some charity or what have you...and then Joe tidy's up my garden, prunes my roses and fruit trees, i always pay him, but he has this unfailing ability to turn up when I've baked!

[ummmm]

Hide them...

[ethandron]

i think you're a pushover - very kind, but still a pushover :)
open a packet of biscuits.

[Sachs]

mercia,
isn't that the nice side to your effort, someone appreciating it! :0)

[ummmm]

I think she might like to appreciate it herself..

[Sachs]

lol ummm!

[Oiverbotel]

I bake a lot as well: but we have a home policy: if we're baking, always prepare for sharing. There are a number of elderlies in the neighbourhood and it's fun to drop off a goody bag from time-to-time. It takes little effort, but the results can be powerful.

And well done you for baking and not buying ready-made, Fills the home with love!

[Jemisa]

I wish I was your neighbour, you've got me drooling.........

Jem

[merciasounds]

But i DO Oiverbotel! I make it a policy that i take them all a hot meal at least once a week, or have them over - I take them scones or cookies...plates of stew and dumplings, jars of jams/pickles/preserves I've made...and they're always invited at 'special' times like christmas and B/days and they come if they've nothing else on...I suppose I'm just being an old moaner, and should make more - it's just lack of time!!

[ummmm]

It sounds like you do enough already :-)

[Sachs]

Well you sound a lovely person !

[society]

Don't answer the door when you've baked goodies. :-)

[milliezoe]

Where do you live would love to move there with my home made soups and cakes we could feed the whole village well done you

[tamborine]

think yourself lucky - they're stopping you gaining weight

[sahida]

You are a blessing in disguise, for them, and the million dollor question is do they value you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[paddywak]

I'm sorry but there is no answer to it my, late mother who would bake twice a week virtually up to the day she died aged 76 reckoned the kids in the familly were born with a sensor that went off as soon as she took anything out of the oven,not only would they start arriving before things even had a chance to cool but they normally fetched their mates to try their Grannies cakes,with the result that some days the only result from a days baking was a plate fll of crmbs