Must Farm, Whittlesey. Archaeological heaven in Fenland.

When you teach history at school, it starts with the Normans, in the main. You might get a little tickle of Vikings and Saxons in primary school, but History Proper starts with William I, and he was French. There's a necessary nod to the Romans, but they're, well, the Romans. You can't ignore them. They built the roads. But the rest of British Pre-history is swept aside in a gallop that lasts three years from the Normans in Year 7 to defeating the Nazis and living a Cold War in Year 9.  Even Schama, who professes to tell "Our island story" and , along with Niall Ferguson, declaims a desire to re-introduce a love of History and narrative to history in schools, relegates pre-history society to one measly chapter in his 4 volume story that is 10% mesolithic-iron age and 90% Romans. Think about it. Neolithic-Bronze age equates to 8000-800BC. It's a LONG TIME to ignore. But it's just people in loinclothes eating mud, right? Till the Romans came along?

Er, no. But most assuredly, apart from that tranche of people who admire that long haired Scottish TV historian who pops up for pre-history on the odd occaision,  for varied reasons, this is what a large amount of people think. Civilization, farming, clothing, probably speech, started with the Romans. Except not. Complex communities, trading between countries, wars, farming, were undoubtedly happening before togas appeared. And Fenland is uniquely placed to show just how amazing these pre-history societies were.

Bronze age scythe. I love the screw hole.

A fantastic combination of geology and business has combined to preserve, and then explore, one of the biggest Bronze age and earlier archaeological sites in the UK, if not Europe. Must Farm, in Whittlesey, is owned by Hansons, the brick makers, who use it as a quarry for the Fenland Blue Clay. Hansons are able to dig deep, way down below the usual scoping trenches offered in a planning application, and way, way back, the first inklings that Must Farm held something special were proven correct when the Bronze age platform, a bridge between islands, was revealed in 2006. Since then, the dig has thrown so much pre-history wide open that academia will have to seriously reconsider some of the perceptions of Bronze Age life. The site  is a gigantic 3D experience, with a Bronze Age River channel, and digs revealing land back to a Mesolithic base, sloping seawards.  The dig aims to push further back. What becomes apparent is that Fenland was not ever thus: it was once dry and forested, then wet, then dry, then wet.(I think i've got that right....) In the Bronze age, the (vast) time period that the majority of the dig currently focuses on, the population existed on islands, with bridges between them.

Riverbed, showing fishing traps.

It is at once clear, as soon as you walk into the dig area, that these people were canny workers, exploiting the landscape. The river channel, although dry, is nonetheless clearly indicative of a working community, and you can see instantly how the river was utilised. The boats lie there, the channel is regularly dotted with fish traps and weirs. These could be contemporary, a mediveal, early modern and aquatically inclined fenlander of today could recognise, and use the fish traps, and probably make them. Effective then, effective now. It feels, in fact, as if the river has simply drained away, and if you whipped round the bend quick enough you might catch the last Bronze Age fisherman paddling away in his longboat. Of which there are many.

Longboats had been found, in Bradly Fen, and Peterborough, but not in this joyous amount. 8 so far and counting, this is clearly a race of water babies, and possibly seafaring ones (much of the Bronze age finds here relate to those found in Norway, there may well have been a link betwen the cultures, they may well have been, in fact, one culture). The boats are dug out, not fired out, mostly oak (with 2 ash) and carved. The flotilla contains probably one of the earliest examples of a log boat made from a single trunk, with a separate panel for the rear. Even to a complete novice like me, they can't fail to impress.

A great deal of domestic pottery, textile and implements have been found, including farming tools and cookware, all beautifully preserved, due to the clay and, a ruddy great fire. (The pot to the right shows food still carbonised in the pot). The platform bridge and the surrounds were quite clearly burnt in a huge fire at some point, and what we can't know, of course is why.Cooking gone wrong, or attack? When you look at the huge array of weaponry found, you can't help but think that the times were perhaps less calm than "Time Team" might have you believe. Less building bridges to meet and trade, than to attack and defend. There are hundreds of finds lining the dig,  some swords nicked and clashed with signs of battle,and this, combined with the amount of bone found in  the river channel, may lead you to conclude that it wasn't always farming and fishing the community concentrated on. No burial chambers or sites have been found, but plenty of bone and ceremonially broken swords in the river,  leading you to ponder whether the river was also a cemetary as well as dinner source.

Rapier. Not for playing with.

After a stomp around, and an enthusiastic commentary from Mark, the CAU chap, it was impossible to feel anything other than awe at the site, which is surely unique in Europe. Nowhere but Fenland has such a geological past, and nowhere else can you go back this far and cleanly to the past. The mussell shells I picked up from the river bed were from 800BC, but fresh. The gravel we trod on at one point was mesolithic. The clay pits have preserved it all. And industry has made this dig possible. Without our modern expansion and pressing need for brick and new housing, the quarry would not be here. The history would remain buried. And we need the development to go on for the dig to go on, which is funded purely by Hansons, as part of the dvelopment procedure. And they more they find, the more it costs. The more they find, the more important it becomes to continue. There is an almost impossible balancing act between the needs of business and the needs of the dig, but thus far it's holding. Mark was openly grateful to Hansons for the efforts they had made to accomodate the archaeology, and when you are onsite it's not hard to see why; it's a massive undertaking and the costs of keeping a Bronze Age boat preserved are not small.  But Hansons need people to keep buying bricks (and have recently laid people off) and need development to continue, for the quarry, and the dig, to continue. There is much much more to find, so I found myself in the unlikely position of wishing for some more toytown housing pods to pop up merely so I can see what else they dig up.

Oak longboat

What they dig and have dug up will be, eventually, housed in a variety of homes, most likely Cambridge archaeology and anthropology musuem, Whittlesey museum, and Flag Fen musuem and centre, so you will be able to see a lot of it. What I would like to see is a co-ordinated effort to ensure that the finds are part of an overview of Fenland aracheology, properly promoted and funded, so that tourists visit and locals are proud of what they walk on. I'd like to see the research published, and academia interested. Academic and business money is needed here. Fenland, lord knows, whilst a beautiful place when  you've got a ken for it, is not a universally acknowledge visitor attraction, it's no Norfolk Broads, but in Must Farm we see a frankly amazing heritage that is little understood and unexploited. I'd like to see schools on board, the local history section of GCSE focusing on the Bronze Age. I'd basically, just like to see it again. And catch a Bronze Age fisherman out of the corner of my eye.



 Map showing the platform (bridges) between islands, and the river channel in blue. Sword deposisitions are marked in yellow. Quite a bit of defending and fighting round bridges going on, I surmise !



You can see my flickr set of the visit here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/55291255@N00/sets/72157629598981121/

The pox, it cometh.

All that glib talk of chicken pox parties, wanting your kid to get the pox, starts to look really stupid when your kid actually HAS the pox, because Chicken Pox, despite the fluffy name, is NO FUN AT ALL. A few posts ago, I wrote that daughter was feeling ill, feverish. Many days after, lo! The pox, it cometh. And here we are , 5 days in, still popping out new spots and feeling dreadful. Her, because she's itchy, some spots hurt, she's up all night, itching, and she's coughing, and me, because i'm up all night pasting on various ungents and comforting, inadequately.

Pox is hideous. Deprived of the ability to mix with other humans, a chess game of getting the other kid to school has taken up many hours, not least because he doesn't WANT to go now he knows his sister is sitting on the sofa watching Disney. She cannot mix with other kids or pregnant ladies and this means no mixing at the school gate while I drop son off, or evil looks result. So friends have to step in and relay between me and her at the outside entrance. General advice at the outside entrance to school has ranged from the unhelpful to the wise. The general belief is, I find, that Chicken Pox is a relatively harmless, almost fun week or so off of school, with a bit of a snivelly nose. This is far from the truth. Whilst some children may be rendered only slightly annoyed by it, others may be completely floored. In my case, 30 years ago, I managed to make my mother awestruck in silence (no mean feat) with my huge array of spots, which even, I recall, patterned the inside of my nose, mouth and eyelids. I was in bed for days.  My sister on the other hand, had about 20 spots and persisted in riding her trike up and down outside the bedroom door.

Fact is, that chicken pox is vaccinated against in many countries (but not this) for very good reasons. Firstly, for the harm it can do to pregnant women and their unborn children. Like German measles, the chicken pox sufferer may be relatively unbothered, but the recipient of the pox may not be, and it can result in babies being born with the pox, and various problems. So, it follows , that you should avoid pregnant women and newborns when you have it, or may be carrying it. But herein lies the problem. The incubation period of this very effective virus is such that it initially manifests as a cold, or flu like symptoms. Nobody keeps off of work or school for a snotty nose.Very unpopular you would be if you did. And yet this is exactly when the virus is at it's most contagious, BEFORE the spots appear. Hence, this week, son has been miserably attending school, resenting his sisters' placement in front of a Disney DVD while he learns more phonics, probably spreading far and wide the virus. But school policy doesn't say that he shouldn't attend. And he may not be carrying the virus. No point in him missing learning time and knackering the classes attendence figures for no reason. So you can see why vaccination is an attractive prospect to head this dilemma off.

The pox can also lead to complications in the case of children and adults with immune deficiencies, and, those with asthma who are regularly treated with streoids. As this includes most of  the children with asthma, this is quite a serious thought. Although having chicken pox in childhood has been linked to reducing your chances of the onset of asthma and related skin conditions, it's also been linked to worsening of asthma and severe complications if you catch it after a course of steroid tablets, or after an asthma attack or period of intense steroid use. Which means it's a risk to a lot of kids. And it's very nasty to get it as an adult, too.

After trawling around looking at various bits of research, I've found that the pox isn't as straightforward as you might think. For every kid who is biking about with it, there's one who ends up very poorly. There is conflicting advice about medication (ibuprofen, for example, has been shown to lead to complication with chicken pox,  leading to worsening asthma and possibly a link with necrotising skin disorders, and the advice as to whether to continue with steroid asthma medication is confused). Everybody has an idea about the best way to sort it out. Everyone has an idea about when it's contagious, before, after, during the spots. Everyone believes one or more myths about it. I was surprised to find out, for example, that yes, you can get it again. More than twice, even. No limit in fact. And no, the second time you get it, it isn't always shingles.  A good friend has racked up 4 counts of chicken pox. 13% of people have been reported to get it more than once. It seems that some people don't make those antibodies against it. And the incubation period is MASSIVE, 10-21 days from that snivelly cold. Daughter took 12 days to pop her first spot, and during that time, she was merrily away at playgroup, breathing it at people.  After being exposed to someone with the virus for 15 minutes, you are at risk. Playgroup can look forward to being quieter for a bit. It is not possible to catch shingles from chicken pox, and vice versa. Shingles is basically the remains of the childhood chicken pox virus re-activated at some point in your lilfe, possbly because your immune defences are low.You should never give your child aspirin when they have chicken pox as this has been linked to them getting Reyes Syndrome.And so on. For an everyday childhood disease, which is common, there's a lot of humming, hawing, and misinformation out there.

So what works?

• Well, people told me calamine cream, which was as much use as, well, co-co-pops would have been. Aside from smearing itself over the bedsheets, it seems to have done little. Likewise calamine lotion. Piriton worked, but the dosage instructions ban you from using it as frequently as I found she has needed it. So I had recourse to other action. 
• Baking powder is your friend. Tepid baths with 3-4 tablespoons of bicarb in, as often as you can. 
• Make up a paste of bicarb and water, keep it in the fridge, paste it on particularly nasty spots.
• Keep cool. Radiators, clothes, off. No waistbands, no pants. Spots appear where it is warm, in the nether regions and hairline, for example, so strip your child. Keep them out of the sun.
• Witchazel for spots on the face. I found calamine too greasy, and annoying for the face. Witchazel works nicely and can be kept cool in the fridge. 
• Peppermint tea in the bath, or as a cool solution to dab on spots. It also gives your child the satisfactory experience of bathing in what looks like wee. If, as below, they are having trouble weeing, this may be the best place to get them to do it.
• Sudocrem. You know that big pot you got when your kid was a baby that you still have half of? It's that big for a reason. Add some tea-tree oil or lavender oil (only a few drops) to some, and dab on.
• Keep cool inside. Ice pops, ice tea, cold drinks. Cotton sheets.
• All natural fibres when you do get dressed. 
• It's worse at night. Keep the room as cool as you can.
• Cut your nails (they will be filled with sudocrem) and cut theirs. Right down.
• The piriton makes them sleep. This is good.
• Their appetite will vanish, particularly if they have spots in the mouth (yes, you can get them).

And here I am, 4 days into the spot appearing section (they can continue from between 5-10 days), and they show no signs of stopping. I found it enormously hard to find decent pictures of spots online, that were not too small or textbook. Here's my guide to the spot spotting.

• The first spots will look like heat bumps. Daughter started with 5 or 6, round the neck. I thought it was heat rash.
• After a time (10 hours in my case) the first signs will have developed into water carrying blisters. There will be more of them. 
• They can vary in size. Enormously. One on daughter is the size of a 5p. Most are the size of a matchead. 
• After the first few days, you will notice that the older spots are crusting over, but new spots will still be popping up. So you'll have some pink blistery ones alongside crustier, darker ones.
• I'm on day 4. I have a wide range of heat rash-to-be spots, blistery spots, and crusty spots. The crusty ones itch. They also bleed REALLY easily. If you pick the kid up without due care, easily.  Be on guard to slap cream on, and hadle with sensitivity.
• And a note. These spots go EVERYWHERE. Daughter has them on the scalp (washing hair with bicarb water helps, leave it to dry naturally), eyelids, inner ears, and down there. Going to the toilet is painful, so be sure to keep the child well watered, as dehydrated pee is painful. If you see a spot appearing on the actual eyeball, or if any get infected, go to the GP, as it's dangerous. But however nasty the spots "down there" may be to consider, they are normal.

So, I no longer, after a long three nights of hourly wakings plastering on cream and bicarb paste, and listening to daughter wee crying, think of chicken pox as a painless childhood illness. Be prepared.  As one child crawls out of the poxy tunnel, the other one wanders in. He has a runny nose. See you after Easter.And if anyone can tell me why kids fall like flies from chicken pox round Easter, you win a half used tub of calamine cream.
Picture shows daughter unimpressed by Princess Jasmine, sleeping, IN THE DAY, which she hasn't done since she was 12 months. AND she went to sleep tonight. She's ill. Note the spots round the ears, hairline, sweat lines.

I can't add. I could, I can't, I can. My Maths skills story.

Well, it seems we are a nation of mathematical idiots. Articles in all the press this week emphasise the fact that people in the UK can't tell what change to expect, are unemployable, and basically idiotic, although we can read (just). It's my belief though, that this is simply a faliure to take a maths GCSE, NOT a faliure in general. Here is my maths story.

A child genius (according to me and my mum), I was put into my English and Maths O Levels early at 12/13. It was assumed, I think, that as I was really very bright at English, I was faking my complete idiocy at maths. I wasn't. I got the English, failed the maths. Onto the very first, ever, year of GCSE (1988). Passed 10 GCSE's at A and B. Failed maths. Onto A levels. Took 4, passed 4, failed maths GCSE again. And again. Onto university, as thankfully, this was before a maths GCSE was compulsory to go, as they (sensibly) reasoned that to take a History degree, 4 A levels and 2 S levels were perfectly adequate. Here, I retook, and re-failed the maths as a favour to the education department and their investigation into inumeracy. After completeing a postgradute degree, I gave up. I then worked in a large university library, where I had budgetry responsibility for an entire subject department, and regularly used complex formula to determine, amongst other things, wastage, withdrawal of material and reprographic usage. I completed yearly investigations into use of books, worked out percentages, wrote financial end of year reports,  statistical analysis reports, library OPAC computer statistical reports, and generally used maths every single day despite not having a GCSE, without any major disaster.

But then I decided i'd retrain as a teacher. And a maths GCSE was compulsory. So I betook myself off to an evening course and related my sorry history to the teacher. Who promptly undertook to pass me. And lo! at the ripe old age of 28, I finally found a teacher who managed to explain to a very left brained person the right brained side of maths. He got me drawing fractions, imagining equations, and suddenly, for a brief period running up to the exam, I was maths wonderwoman. I dreamt maths. I drew maths. I bored people witless in the pub with maths. We had a debate about the paper to put me in for. Intermediate, I said ( you can get a C, but no more). Higher, he said. He took me out for many beers, and won. I sat the higher. I got an A. My mother still doesn't believe me.

Almost immediately after leaving the exam hall, all knowledge about quadratic equations left me. I found myself, in maths terms, almost exactly the same as I was prior to my mathematical genius being born. Except now, I could teach. So I did. I used my maths to demonstrate hyperinflation in Weimar Germany, to explain communism, the Tithe, the Weregild and taxation. And to write statistical reports. Every, sodding, job. In effect, the GCSE did nothing for me.

No, no. It's not that the GCSE did nothing. It's that the difference between a D grade (fail) and a C grade (pass) is nothing. As a teacher, I know that the crunch point comes when you decide what paper you are going to put the student in for. Lower means you don't expect anything much. Intermediate means they might scrape a C. Higher means that the school is happy for them to risk that League Table status. In any other subject the teacher makes the decision in YEAR 9, sometimes 10. Yes, you read that right. Your kid is already pigeonholed as they start taking the GCSE year(s). In History, one paper fits all, so I was often in the unique situation to see a student who was taking "lower" in all other subjects suddenly come into their own in Year 11, and acheive a B or C in history, which is not, believe me, an easy option. It's simply that, particularly for boys, the "on" switch happens later, and more slowly, for some. It became apparent to me that many, many students were in effect written off and denied the chance to attain a good grade simply because they might be late developers, or not have attained in earlier years. And for the sake of the league tables, schools do not want to risk a "fail". I suffered from blind optimism and bad teaching, other kids suffer from underestimation. So, the first thing to go is the assumption that all kids can be pigeonholed for GCSe paper selection.

Next up is the assumption that to get a "D" grade in maths is to fail. I got a D 5 times. I was a successful, financially responsible person in charge of budgets. Many, many people who bemoan the lack of mathematical intelligence in kids now would benefit from taking a look at what you need to do to get a"C". Frankly, everything you need to know to function as an adult is there at "D". Fractions, percentages, cash knowledge, statistics, measurements, all at "D". "C" is quadratics, trigonometry. Cleverer, yes. Utterly necessary, no.

And then, there's the teaching of maths. It's HARD if you are not a maths person, and it is very hard to make the subject thrilling. Furthermore, it's not the sort of thing that you can  catch up on if you miss a lot. I had months at a time off of school as a child, due to hospitalisation, and whilst I could catch up on reading, and even, indeed, get ahead (on on notable occaision I returned to school having read the entire reading scheme, and was afterwards allowed to bring my own books into school), it is very difficult to keep up with maths. Miss the first few lessons on percentages, and you stand a real chance of never "getting" it.

Add to that the fact that it's teacher relevant. Get a good one, you "get" it. Get a bad one, you don't. I am a perfect example of that. If, at 13, my teacher had shown me the simple tactic of drawing fractions and percentages, I might have had my on-swicth moment a good 15 years earlier.

Of course more people need to get maths. It's shopping, it's special offers, it's averages and pay slips, it's budgets and weekly shops and mortgages. But that is the true measure of worth. Teach money management, teach credit and percentage increase on cards. Your life is better if you can manage money. The ability to solve a quadratic equation, whilst fun, is not vital. Let's make it clear what makes an employable, numerate person. It isn't, always a "C" grade. It isn't, always, an "A" grade. Maths needs a revamp. If i were in charge (oh, please.....), i'd take the route of AS/A2. I'd hive off "real" math from the harder stuff. I'd get together a pass mark that was certified to say "this person can handle a budget". "This person can buy/shop/sell sensibly". Make a new maths pass mark.

That's not to say, mind you, that I don't utterly love my daughters invention of the number "eleventeen".

Behaviour charts, for them, me, him and Them.

After trying a variety of behavioural techniques on daughter and son I have settled on the oldest and best: bribery. Here's some I tried earlier.
Naughty Step. Son notably fell asleep on it, daughter would do the naughty thing then take herself off to it, humming. Fail.

• Sticker chart: son became so focused on gaining stickers he would do something nominally good, for a sticker, then have a paddy if refused, thus losing a sticker. Daughter merely sneaked downstairs and stole stickers for her own chart off of him, or other kids at playgroup. Fail.
• Removal of favourite toys for a pre-determined period. Son would spend the whole of the pre-determined period weeping, daughter would merely say that something else was her favourite toy, ad infinitum, until there were no toys left. Fail.
• Time out in room. Son would weep on the bed then fall asleep, waking and forget the naughtiness, or come downstairs immediately, saying sorry for no reason. Daughter  I once caught, through a gap in the door, making crying noises, to earn sympathy, whilst playing quite happily with her dollshouse. Fail.
• 1,2,3. This is where you are meant to use behavioural management techniques and warn the child before carrying through your punishment. It works with Year 9's. All it did with mine was make them realise they had two attempts to get the naughty thing done before being punished. Fail.

So, onto bribery. I have introduced the concept of pocket money. The alarming amount of 100 new pence a week. Which is like a MILLION when you are 5 and 3. And to earn this goodly amount, they must do the following.
Put dirty washing in the laundry basket.
Tidy their rooms at the end of the day.
Bring plates and cups to the sink.
Put their bikes and scooters in the shed.
AND: the clincher: not get more than 20 "bad" ticks, or they forfeit the pocket money. On the plus side, if they get more than 20 "good" ticks, they can get an extra 10p per 10 ticks.  We have the charts up.
We also have this chart up. As son points out, Daddy isn't particularly good at putting his dirty washing in the basket either.So he drew the chart you see here.

Which leads me to reflect that it is all the more important that the kids get to learn these helpful lifeskills, so that they don't turn into the sort of adult who lives in a cess pit of their own making until a girlfriend/boyfriend/mum comes along to tidy it up for them.

Thus far the bribery is working.

I'm tempted to send a similar chart to my local Council. Only with bigger demands that earn their right to get voted in again. Like, keep a bus service running maybe, or don't give yourself a whacking great payrise while you're cutting the arse off everything else. Unfortunately, bribery works all too well with this lot, and my paltry vote and quid won't go far. If I had a huge plot of land to develop, maybe......

Ill children, ginger biscuits and a moonsand recipe.

I know Madam is ill when she wants cuddles and just lies on me for hours without muttering an insult or asking a why. Now, i'm not saying that I want her to be ill, but once the sweaty fever stage is over and the cuddle stage kicks in, there is a pleasure to be had in sitting on the sofa watching the Wizard Of Oz again (Glinda is a man, I swear, look at her hands).Now madam is 3 (nearly 4, that's very important) and confident enough to take over Greece, it's all "No Mummy, I can do it!" and "Leave me alone, I want to do it!", which is of course, to be lauded and expacted. But a little sad too.

So, once the Calpol has kicked in and things have calmed down enough that i'm no longer worried and she's no longer delirious, we can enjoy a pajama day on the sofa, watching Dorothy be far too big for that frock, really, and the Munchkins smoke enormous cigars. I'm sure they'd not get away with that now. We're too tired for anything else, since the wee hours were spent mopping brows and administering Calpol. Once son has been shifted, grudgingly, to school, wishing he were ill, we can flop out and collapse.  And later on, when she's actually allowed me to prise the lumps from her nose and wipe her face ( a bit), we can bake biscuists (ginger for the cold, naturally), and try out a recipe for homemade knock off moonsand.

First, the worlds easiest ginger biscuit recipe. This recipe makes a LOT of biscuits, about 40 by my sizing, but this is the right amount for this house, wherein they don;t survive long. They are fatter versions of shop biscuits, cracked and crunchy. If you like yours chewy in the middle, swap the golden syrup for black treacle and cook for less time. This recipe is also ultimately child friendly, there's a fair bit for them to do. they can crack and whisk eggs and do the stirring and ball rolling.

You will need (in the dry bowl, sifted)
350g Self-Raising Flour
1 teaspoon bicarb
1 tablespoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. 
You will need, in the wet bowl, melted,
115g butter
85g golden syrup
200g sugar

Melt the wet ingredients. Add a beaten egg. Add to the dry bowl, mix until you get a very stiff plaibale dough. Roll into walnut sized balls.
Bake at Gas mark 3 for 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool, eat by the handful, saying they are good for a cold.

And now onto mess making toys.Moonsand, as all parents who have thus far managed to avoid playdough know, is even more epxnsive than playdough and probably much more annoying to clean up. However, all messy toys are good toys, and what better to cheer up an ailing child than giving them things they can be messy with on purpose. This recipe is simple enough, and cheap enough to give the makers of Moonsand cause for concern. The texture is exactly the same, silky "sand" that sticks together and makes nifty castles. Madam spent a happy hour burying her Polly Pockets alive.

Take 8 parts flour to one part baby oil. Mix. That's it! The only bugbear is that you can't add food colouring as it is water, not oil based, and will turn the flour into glop. So a nice scented oil, like baby oil is the way to go, or a bright yellow oil, like rapeseed, will give you a pastel yellow shade. How easy is that?

What price democracy? 1K, apparently.

I live in a town where the local council is above average in age, blueness, and wealth. There are a few LibDems, but I don't count them anymore, as they are now pale blue too. In short, our local town council is generally seen, by anyone under 45 as being non-representative of the majority of the town, as the town also includes lots of young families and "incomers", and the Council is a bastion of "old families" and friends of friends.  We can of course argue that it is the fault of the voters that this lot got in, but many people, like me, were unable to vote last election, as there were no candidates, other than Conservative, for their wards.

We are now in a strange situation, as one councillor has resigned. As it is a LOOOOONG time until the next general election, the current council incumbents are allowed to co-opt a councillor (ie: choose someone themselves) if there are not enough people writing to the Returning Officer to ask for an election. As you can imagine, this has not been widely publicised, aside from the notice pinned to the Council board, not even on Council webpages. Until, that is, an eagle eyed person spotted the notice and flagged it up on Shape Your Place. I have written to the Returning Officer asking for an election, and so have some other people I know. To my mind, this is an opportunity to vote for someone new and inject life into the Council. Maybe someone not-blue would stand, and people would vote for them. And without an election, a co-option would undoubtedly lead to a meeting in the Conservative Club and another identikit councillor being put in place. Now, i'm not so naive as to think that even with an election, this might not happen anyway, and in fact i'm pretty sure that even as I type the Conservative Supporter Association are grinding their gears up a notch. But it's about transparency, and democracy, and the right of people not to be told what is happening, but to choose. I'd have thought that was pretty straightforward.

But apparently, it's not. Apparently, asking for an election is undemocratic, since it will cost the Council money. The LibDems have come out and said they won't be asking for an election, thanks very much (sniffs, retreats to high horse), as they don't want to cost the Council money. By implication, anyone who does ask for an election is a terrible sprendthrift who is probably right this minute snatching bus services from the good people of Chatteris. Oh, no, hang on..... Plus there are some pretty directed remarks about how councillors need to to listen to people and not have ideas. I can't imagine who the remarks are directed at.

Thing is, I was vacillating about whether to stand if there was an election or not. But the reaction from the LibDems so far is nudging me toward doing it. I'm pretty good at playground politics. Yes, 1K is a lot. But on the promise of a secret ballot of a bunch of councillors who basically act as a hive mind most of the time, the prospect of co-option doesn't strike me as being fair or representative of the people of Mills Ward, most of whom, it is fair to say, are probably deeply uninterested in the issue, or haven't yet realised what is happening. I suppose what offeneds me most is that it's just assumed that the good people of Chatteris want this paternalistic attitude of "we know best", and won't object. And that to object is somehow wrong. It's like being told off by your mum. In a blue rinse.

I'm in proportion.

Bear with me. Direct proportion: where ratios remain constant.  Inverse proportion: the relation between two quantities where one increases as the other decreases.
The proportions in this house are out of control. Some, the nice, clingable onto ones, are direct. They stay the same, they never vary. If something is hideously pink, I know daughter will want to wear it hideously often. If I lack, say 5 hours sleep, I  know the kids will misbehave for 5 hours. If the phone rings and I am on it for 5 minutes, 5 bad things will have been done by the time I get off it. 10 pence gets 10 pic n' mix, and only on the bottom row, kids, from that weird shop where the good people of Chatteris can buy elderly jelly sweets and all the model aircraft they could ever want.  The amount of Tories in the cabinet is directly related to the tax breaks rich people get. The march of time in 2 weekly periods is directly related to the appearance of 14 more grey hairs on my head. For every 5,000 chicken pellets in the bag in the shed, there will be one fat mouse. The amount of bubbles in the bath is directly proportional to the amount of time I can leave the kids in it.The amount of Tories in charge in Fenland is directly proportional to the amount of people who don't vote, and thus leave it up to about 40 old people to elect. The amount of newsprint in the local rag directed at Chatteris is directly proportional to the amount of interest the editor has in it, ie: none.

But many things are inversely proportional. If I make a huge effort and invest hours in cooking a meal, the kids will not eat it and spend 5 minutes decrying it. If, on the other hand, I spend 5 minutes bunging crap under a grill and serving it on a waffle, they'll eat it and ask for more. If they are, perchance, invited to the house of a charming, well behaved child, their behaviour will decrease in inverse proportion to the charm of the other. Hence today, charming child is pleasing and thanking and eating all the prepared lunch, while Inverse Kids, (their new anti-super-hero monikers) , are denying they EVER eat tuna sandwiches and weeping, while I berate them and drag them to a naughty step, which is not covered in snot like ours, and has clean carpet on it. "It's fluffy!" they grin, and don't mind sitting there in the least.  Similarly, as my need for a glass of wine and rest increases, the hereforto complete knackeredness of the children vanishes, and they are up, lark like, with interminable questions about weather systems and how bowels work, hours past bedtime. The amount of people saying  "So! 40!" in a jaunty "life begins" way, directly decreased my enjoyment of turning 40. The increase in damp weather decreases the hens laying me eggs, which is a bugger, as it increases me need for vast amounts of cake. The metabolism required to burn off vast amounts of cake decreases, as my age increases. The huge effort I put into the quilt, the dress, the toy, is vastly underappreciated, while the skirt I made out of a pillowcase in 10 minutes is loved. The attractive, expensive doll is left, the ugly boss eyed, no-legged doll is loved. Really, no legs. She's called Poppy. The increased amount of Tories in the government = less spending on the needy. The more I want the Winter to end, the longer it lasts. The longer a man has man flu, so the sympathy in the spouse wanes. The more I go around switching off lightswitches like my nan used to, the bigger my bills appear. The more time the kids are at school and playgroup, the less time I actually appear to have. The more school runs I do, the chunkier my legs get, and that's NOT WHAT I WANTED TO HAPPEN.

This post is directly proportional to the amount of 40 I am. And it's also a bit cross about this chart, here, which tells me variously that I am a size 10-14, 16 up top in some shops. The Guardian today post a chart that tells you the actual measurements of what size is what in each major lady shop. No wonder I get so mad in Top Shop. Not that I'm allowed in now. I think they laserbeam you if you're 40, a bit Logans' run-ish.