We were walking down the street and there were two women in front of us.

‘Hurry, we have to pass them, ‘ urged my partner.

‘Why? In case they beat us to the last cheese scones?’ I said jokingly.

But this was no time for light-hearted jesting.

‘It’s happened before, ‘ he muttered darkly, increasing his pace.

We take baked goods seriously in our household. A bakery that was sold out of our favourite item would make for a grim mood indeed.  Quite serious discussions are held about the quality of cheese scones sourced from different venues and I think at least one local bakery would notice the drop in trade if we went on holiday.

Fortunately for us living in Mt Vic we are blessed with multiple amazing purveyors of baked goods, not to mention its essential companion, coffee.

Both Myrtle and Tomboy have extensive mouth-watering arrays of donuts, tarts, muffins, scone, cakes and slices. No wonder there are often queues out the door.

Indeed it feels like bakeries are having a renaissance.  Or is it actually a new birth?

When I was younger I went to Germany for a school trip and stayed in Bavaria.

Every day the mother, in traditional hausfrau fashion, set out on her bike to bring fresh bread.  She arrived back with a wicker basket containing varieties of bread, from the dark and dense, to croissants and light pastries.

For someone like myself, used only to getting dull pre-sliced loaves from the supermarket on a weekly basis, tucking into fresh bread for breakfast was an extraordinary thing, and the experience stuck with me more than visits to the castles and churches that were supposed to be the highlights of the visit.

I thought it would be unlikely that this wonderful tradition of daily visits to bakeries would ever make its way to New Zealand but just the other day I saw a local mum heading home with a box of baked somethings in the early morning and I wondered if we aren’t such philistines after all.

Indeed, where I work donuts have become the default when any bad news needs to be announced.  As I work in the public sector, the donut intake has been increasing a bit of late – paid for, I hasten to add, by individuals and not the taxpayer.

No wonder only very miserable people follow keto diets.  Why do that to yourself when you can enjoy the mental health benefits of carbohydrates, sugar and fats combined in such wonderful ways?

It’s all good for you, unless of course someone tries to take the last cheese scone I am eyeing up – in that case, get ready for a fight!