Given the limited signal, I never had chance to elaborate on the petite oven of death…. As there is no built in cooker or hob in the gite kitchen, we bought a little counter top oven/2 ring hob thing to avoid us having to eat cold canned Dauphinoise, we’re not savages! The thing is frankly terrifying. Despite reading the manual of doom, the very many things you shouldn’t do at the same time as using it, the bits you mustn’t on any account touch, the instructions on how to pop the kids in the nuclear bunker prior to setting the timer, you’re ready to get your Raymond Blanc on. Oh the delights of a French supermarket. It’s very hard not to go all Peter Kaye “les Cadburys fingres” but I do love a good old supermarche mooch. The bounty we chose was a kind of cross between a Findus Crispy Pancake and a cheesy chicken Kiev, plus little crispy potato balls and Heinz baked beans. Staying classy at all times. The font on the bean tin was all wrong though….but we’ll let that go. Then of course there was the humerous marital discourse over whether the oven trays I’d picked up would fit in the pixie death oven, I said they would, he said they wouldn’t. Whoever was right or wrong is irrelevant, but I cooked tea in a Pyrex dish…. I also realised that all the pans were still in the back of the car that had departed over an hour ago so had to forage in the “big house” in the hopes of a suitable bean heating receptical. It was not going well. It took a little figuring out to understand that things would only heat up if you set the timer, which made a further tension inducing ticking noise, like an incendiary device from a Die Hard film. Once heated the bars in the oven glow red like a farriers freshly melded horse-shoe. I have to put my hand in this contraption?? However, a glass of Aldi’s finest Cote du Rhone courage was once again on hand to and I managed to knock out a decent first meal and yet retain a full set of fingerprints, bonus! As you can’t amend the timer to off until it’s run it’s full alotted time, you get the added delight of a over zealous PING!!! a few forkfuls in to dinner, sending little potato balls skyward. Bon appetit!