Black Treacle cake Number 2

Further to my recipe for black Treacle cake. The secret is in the name. Of course you can't use ordinary treacle! Marysue, could this be the same as Molasses?
So here we are back from Rotterdam.We only went for a day and two nights so why does it feel like 3 weeks?
Firstly it was freezing cold. The dinner buffet was wonderful but I was so full and had a bloated feeling for the rest of the first night.We of course had to stay up until after midnight because the men were letching after the singer in the band. it was a bit difficult then to get to sleep, what with the rocking of the boat and the full feeling etc.
In the morning after a loud"Ping Pong" over the tannoy, followed by a womans voice telling us that it was half past six (but only half past five English time ) and it was time to get up, we stumbled from our beds not knowing what day it was never mind what time. we needn't have worried as the "Ping Pong" woman reminded us of the time every half hour!
Next was the bus that was to take us to Rotterdam town centre. He deposited us at 9am at the bus station. Dodie got really excited at the thought of all the shopping she was going to do. WRONG!! Nobody told us that the shops didn't open until 1pm on Mondays!! After some despair and consultation with some students it was decided that we would go on the train to a shopping mall.Getting train tickets and finding the platform is a novel in itself. Suffice it to say that an army assault course holds no fears for me now! Bear in mind that it was still only about 11 am and we couldn't go back to the ship until the bus came for us at 5pm
Having found the shopping Mall, we also found that due to the state of the euro/pound exchange rate we couldn't afford to buy anything so we repaired to the Pub! Another big mistake. £20 for four small drinks. We tried to stay in there for as long as possible to keep warm but eventually we were forced to get the train back to Rotterdam where a few shops were reluctantly opening.
After about three hours of traipsing round in the freezing cold we went into a chinese phone shop and sat on their settee until someone asked what they could do for us, at which point we were out in the freezing cold again until the bus came. It should be said that at this point we had more or less lost the will to live!
Several other people from the boat were in the same sort of mood so we had to laugh or we would have cried!
Anyway back on the boat we again had a lovely meal and despite the same singer looking more ravishing then the night before it was decided that we would have an early night to prepare for the "Ping Pong" lady. She didn't disapoint!
Enough already! Sheila x