The Birthday cake saga - again.

Yesterday we hosted our first party since we have been here in the UK. We had a great time with a few of DA's American co-workers and their families. Since it was DA's birthday, I gritted my teeth, hoped for the best and attempted to bake his birthday cake. I chose a simple bundt cake, chocolate chip to be exact, thinking it just took basic supplies that surely I had seen in the store. Turns out, with the exception of vegetable oil and eggs, I had to make a substitution on EVERY other ingredient. Even the eggs are free-range orang-y looking things. Calls for dry yellow cake mix - marble cake sounds close, calls for pudding - I guess vanilla dessert will work, semi sweet choc squares - hmm, how about choc. baking pieces. I had a few choc. chips I had brought from home so good there. Nestle's isn't sold at my local stores.
When I went to bake it, I converted my temp to Fahrenheit, took a guess on the oven setting, realized I didn't have any Crisco to grease the pan with (butter does NOT work as well as I soon discovered), got out my handy mixer - only to realize the fuse was blown on the transformer, couldn't find a replacement fuse at any store, found another transformer that MIGHT work if I ran mixer very slow then couldn't find a plug converter so I had to completely disassemble the kids video game set up to use converter just to run the mixer. Now I'm cookin'. Cake overflowed all over the interior of the oven, took an extra 45 min to bake, fell apart as I removed it from the pan and didn't taste quite like home, but I did it, I baked a cake here in the UK! After I doctored it up, it looked fine - no one was the wiser.
Then I go to fix the BBQ I ordered from the American butcher several days before. See previous post - everything takes a while and meat orders are no exception. As I unwrapped it, I realized he did not trim it as I had asked, so in reality I have about HALF as much meat as I need. Cant go out and buy anymore. No BBQ shops exist and grocery stores do not carry brisket. I make quick decision to add chicken to the menu and went on with the party.
One other element, since our master bath (or en-suite as they call it) is being renovated right now, we had workers in the house during the party, but we kindly requested that the toilet and bidet sitting by the front door be moved to the garage as to not taint the first impressions of our guests. Don't want them to think we're a couple of Bubbas living here.
All in all, it was a fun afternoon - and now that I have my first cake made, it's all downhill from here.
Oh - birthday gifts you ask - well DA received a new measuring tape IN CENTIMETERS! and B gave him the gift of "agreeing to go to Holland" on an upcoming trip. After our Cornwall excursion, she decided she would never travel again - planes, trains nor automobiles - unless it was to go home! She wanted babysitter while we traveled to Holland, but decided to give her dad the gift of joining the family. We laugh, but it was really a very big step for her to decide to go. I think she has experienced such culture shock that she does not want to travel anywhere. I sincerely hope her "decision" holds until we go or else it could be a LONGGGG trip.