Glut here, lack there.

We are now officially struggling. I'm over my comfort debt threshold (which, truthfully, is 1p in debt, but practically, it means we are 1,500 overdrawn and I fret, I fret). I'm down to the knuckle in terms of what I can spend every week on food, and having to budget in advance for uniform buys and even bus fares. I hate it. A year ago we were flush, I didn't have to think, now I do, every day. I pick away every day at the thought that perhaps I should work too. But I don't want to. Not because I don't *want* to, but because this is son's first year of school, and daughters year of playgroup. I want so much to spend it helping him through it by having tea done for him when gets in, knackered, and shuffling him to bed, happy,through that first year. I know from experience how he chats on the way home from anywhere, and what a kid downlaod time that is. I wouldn't miss it for the world: everything rises up on that long walk home. Who said what, what's bothering him, the lifecycle of earwigs. That's for me, not a childminder, if I can at all help it. And daughter: she never had that one on one time that son had before her noisy arrival. I want this year of time with my daughter before she goes to school, to focus solely on her during the day, to know her a bit more, away from her brother. (This is easier said than done. Being so close, together, they have no need of me and have developed a hive mind). I will cut, cut, cut again to the bone to be at home this year. Not that there are any jobs that suit, anyway.
And to that end, I am foraging and scrimping. The fields at the end of my garden, (soon to be home to 1,000 homes instead of the wheat, Roman remains, Iron age settlements,and wildlife it currently supports) are blessed with loads of blackberries and wild plums,one crabapple, one wild pear, and lots of damson and sloe along the hedgerows. Nobody else seems to pick them, the berries lay heavy on the branch. Just me and kids. It's a true blessing for us, it will furnish us with jam, chutney and soft fruit through the winter, if I get can my vinegar knowledge hat on. This week (and last!) I have collected 10lbs of blackberries, 14 lbs of plums, and 8 dustbin liners of straw leftover after the balers had been and gone. The straw will bed the chickens, the soft fruit has already made 8 pots of plum chutney and 6 bottles of plum ketchup, one blackberry and plum slump, and lots of snacks. However, a dent has not been made. So I intend to make Plum and blackberry chilli chutney, bottle plums and pears, make blackberry wine, and freeze a raft of fruit. The fact remains though, that chutney and preserves will not feed us all Winter, and we will get sick of our runner beans before long. Even the rampant courgettes won't sustain us. I can pot and preserve as much as I like, it won't really help (The chickens must be nervous....) Basically, it is the eighties. I'm poor again, and all I can do is batten down the hatches, love the kids, and hope they don't notice. In a few more months I may be waiting in line at the new Tesco, asking for work. (sob). Or maybe i'll be picketting it. Hope springs.

So, to that end, here's a recipe for spicy plum chutney, which is DELISH with blue cheese and a cracker. This should be made, and left for 4 weeks, or up to 2 years before eating. It's gorgeous, and not at all plummy. It's what I want and hope my kids will be: a lovely fruity, diverse thing born out of adversity.
Ingredients:
1.5kg plums, stoned and quartered or more, depending on size
Handful blackberries
6 shallots, finely chopped
700g dried fruit (I used dried apricots and sultanas)
600g sugar (I used half jam making sugar and half brown)
500ml vinegar (I used cider vinegar, but rice vinegar is also nice)
1 lemon, sliced into 8 slices, then finely chopped. (This adds pectin)
And the spices:
4 sliced cloves garlic
Thumb sized piece of ginger, chopped
Some people stop here, but I also added:
10 black peppecorns
7 juniper berries
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon salt
3 black cardamons, whole (remove after cooking)
2 sticks lemongrass, bashed (remove after cooking)
6 birdseye red chillies, in muslin, whole (remove after cooking)
You can add or subtract spices as you like, I like a fairly hot chutney, and the black cardamons are my secret ingredient, they add a smoky touch to the end product, being quite unlike the green.I'm cooking up a batch as we speak (pictured, top), that has more blackberries, less plums, and star anise in.

Basically, add all the ingredients, bring to boil, then simmer for about 4-5 hours, until you have a nice thick, reduced mixture that parts like the red sea when you draw a spoon across the bottom of the pan. Then cool slightly before pouring into warmed jars (I bake my jars at gas 3 for 10 minutes to sterilise), and sealing. Put them in a dark cupboard and forget about them for 4 weeks, then distribute and eat. I can't tell you how much this makes as I used a hodge podge of old jars, it made 2 large and 4 small the last two times though! Never underestimate how much chutney reduces. I urge you to try your hand at chutney. Nicer than jam, and more useful to the late night snacker. It makes cheese on toast a grand meal.  (The picture, right, shows Plum chilli chutney, Plum ketchup, and plum and ginger chutney, and the brownish round fluff you can see at the far left is a hens' arse.)

I skipped sports day, and i'm glad

Son is in the midst of preparing for Big School. This means that on his playgroup mornings, he gets taken over to roam the school library, and chat to his new teacher-to-be, to prove she is not a monster. He has been refreshingly blase about his, even to the point of grumbling that the library doesn't have a motorbike encyclopaedia, or even a Hayes manual of a Kawasaki Ninja *sigh*, but one thing he came home completely perplexed about was Sports Day. Well meaning playgroup ladies took the rising receptions over to watch the various children pelt about in the heat, drop eggs from a spoon and mostly, lose. After witnessing this Olympics of Fenland, his only response was that there were too many people running. To his mind, competition only really exists when it's against a sibling. Why run against others when there is no sibling to cry at losing? If you want to practise best, fast running, you can do that alone. You don't need to do it in a  field and maybe lose.
I was, needless to say, hopelessly crap at running. All kinds. Sprinting was out because my overdeveloped chest necessitated more sports bra than Marks and Spencers in the 80's had yet envisioned, plus I couldn't run. Cross Country would have been better if the aptly named "Miss Quick" had not sent us out in navy blue pants to run through snow laden fields, while she followed on the roads as best she could, clad in a puffa jacket, on a moped. Hockey was cold legs being beaten with a stick. Shot putt, I won the acclamation of everyone. Nobody had ever seen a girl throw the bloody thing upright, and then stand still as it descended, to fall on her head and concuss her. Still, I got to sit the rest of sports day out with the ambulance people. High jump is hilarious when you are 5 foot. Long jump is just a run into a cat litter tray. I could swim, for ages, but not properly (how can this be? Swimming teacher after swimming teacher would moan at me. I got my badge for swimming a mile, 2 miles. But apparently it was still wrong because I stuck my head up too much. It was the EIGHTIES. I had a FRINGE!) Tennis, Badminton, rubbish. Javelin, they didn't let me near. Rounders? Yes, please. I'll be fielder. I'll go as....far.....as......I......can and have a fag. Netball? Nah.  The apogee of my sporting prowess at school came aged 5, when, annoyed by Mrs Lines attempts to get me into my leotard, which was itchy and entirely flammable, I ran, nude, out of the changing room and ran my entire first sports day in the nude, leaving them with nowhere to pin the red ribbon for coming first in the roly-poly race. It is the only race I have ever won, and all it earnt me was a ribbon and a smacked arse from an angry mother. Sports at school was laothsome, dreadful, angst ridden crap more about the ones would could catch/throw/leap with their eyes shut lording it over the ones who couldn't, especially if they were pudgy academics (like me), than any sense of real sportsmanship.
Was I therefore an obese monster? No. I did sport, I just did the ones I liked. I biked 6 miles a day, 4 times a day, to muck out a horse and ride it, twice a day, before and after school. On my weekends, I 3 day evented. I did pretty well. I enjoyed it, I was actually pretty fit. What did I get for PE? E's, F's. PE at school is about as useful as a Tory Minister at a morality lecture. It sucks. It does nothing for teamwork, nothing for self esteem, and nothing for the kids who are not any good at it. Of course, there's the argument that everyone needs to learn how to lose, but really, did I need to learn to lose 4 periods a week, for all those years? In the end I bunked every lesson and sneaked into the library instead. Now, I am not saying that sport is not a great and wonderful thing , if you are good at it. I look on in awe at son as he catches balls and leaps from branch to branch with a sure limbed dexterity that I have never had. He is naturally quick, agile, and co-ordinated. Is he mine? He will have a ball, literally. He can already tackle me to the ground. This is the boy that I lectured for 35 minutes about how the first time he rode his bike without stabilisers, he might fall, but he must get back up and try again, only to see him cycle off and within 20 minutes start kicking wheelies. How is he of my loins? Daughter, on the other hand, is mine. She still sits down to come down stairs. She cannot catch, run straight, or jump properly, and neither does she care. Yet. Because by Year 7, she will. She will be (although I plead no, no) the last to be picked. The team captain will sigh as they begrudgingly say her name, the last option against the kid in callipers. That was me. It was beyond crappy.

And this is why I applaud the school in somewhere or other that made the Daily Mail on Thursday for telling it's kids that sports day was optional. Of course, the Daily Mail are spitting bits of Empire about it, but hey, it's a damn good idea, as far as i'm concerned. Why not let the kids who couldn't give a stuff about running do something else? Running isn't a vital life skill, like reading, or adding. Bullying people into it doesn't make it fun. Lord alone knows I had to do enough bullying into it myself, as form tutor. In year 7, it went like this:
me: "Who wants to run the 100/200/400/800/ etc etc?"
Kids: "Me! Me! Me! Miss, me!"
By year 9, it was like this.
Me: "Who wants to run the 100 metres? Anyone? Come on?"
Kids: "      "
And how I laughed as I tried to get them to run the 800m. In the end I had to bribe them and threaten them. How did this happen? Through a mixture of PE and hormones.The ones that were good at PE enjoyed it. The ones that were not, didn't. Plus, they had to contend with bits bulging, skin erupting, classmates taunting and, for girls, the hideous clipboard with monthly information recorded. What actually was there to like about PE if you didn't excel at it? And yet, the girls in my form who hated PE were almsot universally members of the street dance club, which met to thunder it's way round my classroom and never put the desks back properly every lunchtime. I had one form tutee who was a whiz at golf, another who was excellent at bowling. None of these are offered at school.  PE doesn't have to be about winning and losing and humiliation. It can and should be about doing something you enjoy, in small groups, or large. It doesn't have to be competative to be useful in building team skills. It's only the winners who insist that competition is best.

So, if your kid is wetting the bed pre-sports day, and throwing a tin of Scotch Broth down the loo pretending they've been sick (yes, that was me: the giveaway was the Scotch Broth smelt far worse than actual sick), then let 'em off. Write them a sick note. Do some sport they like instead, with them.

IF YOU ARE FROM WIMBLINGTON;
*Alert* Lady from Wimblington: I lost your mail and now cannot find your blog. Please send it to me again!

A risky kid is a happy kid.

I cannot watch Michael Gove on television because a) he has a mouth like a cat's bum and b) everything that comes out of it is unmitigated shit that makes me want to destroy my television. Neither can I listen to him on the radio, as even though I can't actually see him, I can still hear him doing his posh spitty boy talking and spouting errant nonsense that he dresses up as policy. The newspapers are usually safe, although they do enjoy printing huge headshots of the man that make him look like Matt Smiths' newest nemesis. So it was, that perusing the Guardians Education section this morning, I came across this article about Health and Safety in schools. And this, on the BBC.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14000093 And now I find myself in a quandry. Because despite, with every fibre of my being detesting the odious little man, I am in agreement with him here. Oh god, I had to hairball that sentence out.

It is very true that the Health and Safety requirements for basic school trips are disproportionate. On taking 10 students from the History club to an underground nuclear bunker (helpfully signposted "secret nuclear bunker" to help us find it), I well remember the sheaves of paperwork and tedious write ups that allowed us to take them on a mini-bus and explore a site that was preparing for the end of the human world. The hideous room that showed them the exactly how the government was calculating deaths from nuclear war, suicide tablets, and the entrance corridor that turned a corner so as to enable the hoardes of ordinary folk who didn't want to die and were invading, to be mown down by government forces, may have given them nightmares, and in fact made one of them quite panicky. But really, walking round a museum (albeit an underground one) is not a high risk activity. Children who go to History club (aka "geek club") are pretty much risk averse and more into re-enacting the telemark skiers with little play men and dice than taking risks. It really would have made life easier if I could just have written their names down on an excursion list and driven off. 

On the other hand, one field trip that found me standing neck high in flowing, freezing water trying to measure how quickly the floating orange came past me was certainly less fun, and more risky. In the first instance, taking a bus load of year 11's to the Norfolk coast in February is going to be problematic. Not only had manay of them never seen a beach and hence, went crazy ("No! Come back! The water is cold! And the locals have never seen a bunch of youths of many hues running amok!"), but much of it was genuinely risky. Wading rivers, climbing, and measuring wave force in freezing water was pretty horrible, and did need those forms. A useful form would also have been one that covered the teacher for lapse in duty due to lack of sleep, as the whole 4 days saw about 2 hours of rest for me, and much standing sentry between dorms, shouting and being stern. So yes, in some instances, the fuss is necessary, and it would be a good thing to allow common sense to triumph. Provided that the schools are not then going to be sued to buggery by angry parents if anything does go wrong. I notice that Gove has made no comments to this effect.

I also think it's part of a wider issue. We do cocoon our children. And whilst it's perfectly easy for me to go all nostalgia: Spangles, out till tea, no mobiles, etc etc, it's also true to say that the world is different now. I was allowed out all day alone from an early age, with the company of the dog and some sandwiches, but this was less to do with the world being safer, and more to do with the attitude of my parents and the media. There is no more child centered crime than there has ever been, but there is more reporting. I dare say that there are fewer accidents now. No longer do we have those eerie ads telling us not to swim in quarries, or climb up electricity pylons to get a frisbee, because far fewer kids are roaming around free with a couple of soggy sarnies in a bag, a frisbee, and a dog, like I was. Out of my window at the moment, I can see some 11 plus kids on bikes on the grass, and their parents in the front gardens. I can't see any kids wandering through the corn fields at the back of the gardens, which I certainly would have been at their age. I see few children under 11 out front. I see fewer kids at the park, and more walking around plugged into those annoying beepy nintendos. At 4. I see a lot of parents with medicated hand gels, a lot who drive rather than walk, a lot who panic. And this is why a little risk is necessary.

I remember panicking when, at nearly term with daughter, I coudln't move quickly enough to get to the big slide, as son, then 14 months, was teetering at the edge. He was fine. It was a turning point. As soon as daughter arrived, the sterilising that sons' implements had undergone was abandoned. Daughter scavenged for his scraps, stuffing whole carrot sticks that had been on the floor into her gummy mouth. I called it baby-led weaning. I let him climb as high as he dared. One mother remonstrated with me for allowing him a knife, a real one, at 18 months. He was fine. How sharp is a cutlery knife anyway? Take a breath. Yes, I covered the plug sockets, but I didn't clamp down the cupboards. I encouraged him to use the stairs. He ate bugs, worms, caterpillars, and once, something unidentifiable from behind the radiator. Sometimes both of them go to bed dirty. They kiss the chickens and cart them about. They play out front and on the paths. They made a den in the ditch at the end of the garden. At the park, they plunge off of the top of climbing frames, and use slides and swings in ways they were not intended to be used.  And all this is good. Risk assessment is a valuable life skill in a child. So is determination and bloodymindedness. I have casually shouted "Just get up" across a park, to horrified stares, and seen daughter just climb up again. I've turned round to see son balancing, one footed, on his bike saddle. I've not stopped him. A bump is sometimes worth it. (And, i've noticed, a  bump is always worse with an audience..... alone, daughter can plummet from the slide and get up and climb again. If she sees you watching her plummet, it's a Bette Davis death scene.)

So yes, introduce a bit more risk. Let students set potassium going. Let kids go kayaking without the teacher having to fill in 50 pages of pointless crap. But also, make risk play more available. Don't close footpaths in favour of farmers (endemic in Fenland). Make more footpaths. Build more parks (and no, a "park" is not a small, fenced in area with two baby swings and a slide I could step over). Build parks with wild spaces, with trees, with dens, and ropes. Build climbing frames, balance games. Make some places wild. Give kids places to go where they can be risky. Skate parks, ramps, bike tracks. When you build housing estates, build in green space. When you have empty town centre buildings, make a youth club. Give organisations that allow youth to explore, the space, time and money, to do it. Make roads safer. Introduce better local speed limits, so kids can bike. Make bike lanes, run road safety courses. Ah, I see. All these things, the parks, the adventure playgrounds, the clubs, these are the things that are gone, or going. These are the things the Councils have been given carte blanche to cut. The playing fields are sold. The youth clubs all gone. Parks? In some areas now you have to pay, others, they are gone, too much maintenence. Or the land is worth more.  I have been bamboozled. Briefly, I thought I may agree with Gove. But now I see that it's a sop. Bigging up risk at school, because all the facilities for risk out of school, have gone, or are going. He almost had me there.

For locals: If you have noticed any loss of upkeep in your park, please contact me.

A rabbit stew, archaeology and Melton

Disclaimer: I am not, and have never been an archaeologist, although I did have a boyfriend as one once and spent a weekend at Sutton Hoo with him in the rain, as the archaeologist fiercely guarded their marmite rations, being glad I wasn't an archaeologist,before trashing my car on the way home. What follows is a personal, not professional, opinion about what a total dickwad the leader of Fenland Council is. Also, after typing "archaeology" a lot of times, my fingers hurt and I forget how to spell it. This is why I studied History instead.

You may not have come across Alan Melton. You may have missed out on the furore of last week, as Alan Melton, he of the portly jowls and job of top dog Councillor of Fenland, described archaeologist as "bunny huggers", and declaimed that he would rip up the planning regulations of Fenland, making the legal requirement to allow archaeologist access a thing of the past. He gave this speech (full text here) to a bunch of developers and builders at an awards ceremony. The whole thing is worth a read, if you enjoy pompous self congratulatory paragraphs that read like a bad AS level essay, but the salient points that were picked up by the press, and lots of other very angry people were (excerpt)

"Unemployment and state dependency could be greatly reduced if the construction industry is allowed to grow. GDP would start to improve significantly, and tax revenues would increase.
This is the message we in local government will be taking to the Local Government Conference later this month and to the Conservative Party Conference in October.
Of course, there are some local changes that we can make to make development easier. We are constantly reviewing our procedures.
I can announce tonight, that from the 1st July. A requirement for an archaeological dig/survey will not be required. The requirement will no longer feature at pre-app. Or form part of the committee agenda.
With one exception, in local known historical areas, such as next to a 1000 year old church.
The bunny huggers won’t like this, but if they wish to inspect a site, they can do it when the footings are being dug out"

So, let's see. He says, quite clearly, in a statement of intent, to a bunch of developers and builders, that they won't need to bother about pesky old bunny hugging bearded archaeologists trying to dig trenches where they want to throw up paper thin walled houses with a garden that a umbrella won't open up in. From July 1st. It's quite clear, isn't it?  He then goes onto say that......

"Of course we shall seek to be sustainable and practical, but we won’t dwell too much on the scriptures of the new religion.
I don’t believe that polar bears will be floating down the Nene in my life time or indeed my children’s.
I think we all need more convincing about some of the conflicting stories that are constantly peddled.
And as a bricklayer by trade, I regret the constant use of timber on our public buildings, and although it looks good when initially fitted, (and ticks a box),
Within 12 months looks as if it needs a coat of creosote.
DAB’s as we know them will be a thing of the past; we will be flexible, particularly around our smaller settlements, where we shall encourage organic growth."

So, on top of not bothering about any old Iron Age roundhouses that have the temerity to be lying underneath the newly planned Melton Close, global warming is all so much codswallop (Er, Alan? We live in the FENS. Like, below sea level? Do you want to rethink that statement? Hands up we're all stood behind Alan when the sea level rises! We can use him as a raft! He's quite big enough), and the DAB's (development area boundaries: they stop people from building wherever they like and are particularly important in smaller areas such as villages) are to be swept away on a tide of organic growth, presuming the river Nene doesn't rise first, as Alan says it won't anyway. "Organic". Wonder what that means. Maybe, willy nilly? Whoever wants to shuck up a big house? Wherever? Details, Alan, details.

And did you notice the clue there? Yes, Alan is a bricklayer! Although he's being disingenous here. He's a big schnozzle in the building trade. He has his own building company. He has interests in development and aggregates. How strange then, that he should want to sweep away any contraints on planning. Oh, no. Wait a goddarned minute........I've been had! Is it the tiniest bit possible that Alan isn't that arsed about my interests, or those of Fenland? Hmmm, let me think.

So, cue a flurry of angry archaeologists, a mention in the broadsheets, and a radio interview, a facebook page, me on the local Shape your Place, 32 leading archaeologists all pointing out that Alan would be breaking the law, Alan countering that it's only European law anyway, and blathering on about Eric Pickles, before someone, and Eric Pickles, quite clearly told him to shut up, before writing this speech for him. It's been written by someone who can put together a decent sentence, and is a sort of "sorry", if you call raising your hands up and saying "Well, I only meant to cause a debate, and anyway, those archaeologists said I was fat" an apology.It's the sort of apology I get from my 4 year old, before he is sent to his room again. Why Sir, you must think me an idiot, because your first speech showed clear intent and did not mention the word "debate" at all! Maybe where you said there would be no need to have any archaeologists after July 1st, a little demon was in your mouth and garbled up all your words, because you were REALLY saying, "gosh, those archaeologists chaps, I could really sit down and have a discussion with them."

It would have been better if he had. Because, as any fule kno, digging on a site does not "hold up" development any more than the person drawing the plans for the houses "holds up" development. It is part of the process, simple as that and is taken into account when developing. It's simply that some people would rather not do it. They'd rather whack up houses quick march and don't want the risk of finding a site underneath them. And, fair play, it might well be a risk. Why? Because the Fens are unique, chock full of pre-history sites that are nowhere else in the UK. The water preserves with remarkable clarity the earliest of sites. Take here, Must Farm at Whittlesey. Described as a "Pompeii" of the Bronze age, a routine dig before the area was quarried revealed finds that make up one of the biggest Bronze Age hoardes ever found. But hey, it held up the quarry! Damn those Bronze agers! It's even more important that digs take place in Fenland than ever, as since the last archaeological survey was completed in the late 80's, a huge number of sites have vanished, been ploughed and harried away. The nature of the black peat and the fertile soil of the fens means they are intensively farmed, and precedence is given to farmers, not sites. Hence, the sites on farmland are vanishing. The sites in developed areas are perhaps the only ones that we can get a good look at.

I don't know of anyone who would begrudge a dig that could enrich our knowledge of the area. No-one apart from Alan. And the rest of Fenland Council, who must have given the nod to the original speech and then had the sheer stupidity not to realise that information is viral now. Alan, even in the Fens people can use that nettyinter, and root out what their councillors are actually saying. The Council are evidently standing by him and hoping it will all blow over. It has before. Alan's a bit of a lad, thrown out once before for accepting gifts and then blurting info that was meant to be private out to the papers. And they let him back. So to my mind, both Alan and the Council are equally culpable. Oh, and the idiots that voted him in again. Possibly they are the voters with big plots waiting to be developed. Well, there's a weather eye on you now.

And ABC of bees in the garden.

I am too angry at the moment to talk about the vanishing of any sort of social conscience amongst members of the government, and so instead will blah on about bees, and their vanishing. This film is available to view online, and is a compelling documentary about the vanishing of bees, and the implications of their demise. Approximately 3 quarters of the plants in Europe require pollination from bees, butterflies, moths, bats or hoverflies to bear fruit, and later, seed. Many species of plant are in a symbiotic relationship with one particular type of bee, and without the bee, and only that bee, there is no plant. Without bees, in short, the prospect for succesful crops and fruit is very bleak. No-one seems quite sure of the cause. It could be varoa virus, mites, monoculture of crops,changes in weather, beekeeping practises, pesticides, or mobile phone masts, or all of it.  Either way, it's odds on it's our fault. The bees will not have been planning their own destruction. My own feeling is that it's bound to be a combination of things. The vast monoculture swathes of oilseed rape in my own area must be wearing to a bee, and combined with everything else, it's no wonder the creatures are knackered. It's a measure of the straits they're in that when son discovered a swarm earlier this Spring, a quick phone call to local bee keepers evinced 8 phonecalls desperate for the swarm within 10 minutes, there was practically a fisticuffs over them. Keepers are losing hives, and grieving.
 It's not just hive bees either, even though most of the fuss in the media centres on honeybees. The solitary bees and bumble bees are affected too. Bumble bees (those furry min chinook helicopters of the insect world) are popping off just as quickly, and the variety of bumblebees in the UK has sharply declined. There are 24 varieties in the UK, and all are suffering. 2 are extinct in the last few years, another 6 are on the at risk list. Because they don't produce commercial amounts of honey, their demise hasn't hit the headlines. For me, a Summer without these drunken fliers , lazily buzzing like crazy and bapping into me and the windows isn't a Summer.  I will never forget the moment I was summoned by son to "look at my new pet!", only to find him stroking a massive sleepy just woken up Bumblebee, with both of them enjoying the experience. The Bumblebee Conservation trust is a mine of information and will give you the info to go and identify what's in your garden, as well as advising on how to encourage them in.

But the best thing you can do is to plant some stuff. Not posh flowers, not fancy flowers. Many of these have negligible nectar, and are useless for the bumbles. What bumbles need is old flowers: old fashioned, cottage garden and wild flowers. Big flowers, tasty flowers, with lots of nectar, open, easy access petals, and they need them from early on after they wake in early Spring , thorugh till September and beyond. Here is a list of plants they adore. This year, my borders were sown, early on in February, with seeds of these annuals and perennials, all adored by bumblebees and other pollinating insects. In a nice ABC vein, I now have a border brimming with Aquilegia, Bugloss, Borage, Cosmos, Deadnettle, Everlasting pea, Foxglove, Geranium, Hyssop (also keeps off cats), Lupin, Marshmallow, Poppies, Rosemary, Sage, Snapdragon, Thyme, Wisteria, and more. The Bugloss in particular has been a joy, surrounded constantly by bees and hoverflies, and producing a neverending bunch of flowers that start off pink and change to blue, then purple as the nectar diminishes (see pic above,with happy hoverfly).  Basically, the cottage gardeners were onto something. They knew their stuff.

If you want to do something extra, provide a nesting site. You don't need to buy a bee house. You can knock one up yourself out of wood, canes, pretty much anything. Again, the Bumblebee conservation society has some plans for you. But the most important thing you can do, perhaps, is tell your kids about them. Bees are important, lovely things. Teach your children to love bees and leave them alone. Observe, don't squash. Be still, don't flap. They're not wasps (which are EVIL), they're useful little things that add colour, sound and beauty to any garden.  (See here for my children explaining the difference between bees and wasps). Buy local honey, seed your grass verges with bee friendly flowers. Tell your neighbours to let that hive be for the Summer, don't use pest control. Don't use pesticides. Use that patch in the shade where nowt grows for a bumble house. Make a little space in your garden for bees, they need it. Your garden is better for bees in it.

And my next post, i'll write about how to help your local Conservative MP become extinct.

Why teachers darn well need to retire

It's a bit of a moot point, since I never intend to return to teaching while Gove is alive (evil cackle, strokes cat, plans, plans), but if I were, I would now be expected to work until I were 68 to claim my now reduced pension. Leaving aside the argument that we're all younger now, we all live longer now, people want to work, etc etc, here is one simple fact. If teachers work till they are 68, then the youth of today will soon be getting re-aquainted with the traditions of laying out corpses, and CPR will creep onto the curriculum, as a blind necessity. "Sir! Sir! Ms. Kirby has collapsed! Kyle is giving her CPR by the whiteboard, but we think she's weed herself and Skler is vidding her on her iphone! Come quick!". Oh yes, it will happen. Because if ever there was a job, (although firemen also fits, really) that is manifestly not suited to past 60, it is teaching. Here's a few reasons why.

You know how annoying it is to listen to your own kids whine? Times that, by 35 + per class (Gove has just removed the maximum class size agreement, lovely man, and so now we will all be teaching to even more kids in even more out of date classrooms), by 6 per day, 5 days per week, less holidays, for 40 plus years. Expect to see some major Falling Down moments.

Memory: you need to recall a LOT as a teacher. Aside from having to know pretty much all of human history from 1066-1978 in my subject, I also had to learn the kids. Sure, I attempted to learn every kids name and remember their own traits, strengths and weaknesses. But it was HARD. Here come parents evening, and I have the name Keisha in front of me as next up. Thinks, thinks,  "Keisha: big hair, too much make-up, smokes at lunchtime, poor spelling, talks too much, sits by the door, never does homework, confuses Right Wing with Left Wing and whilst strongly supportive of Martin Luther King in Year 8, has since let slip that Hitler was "Right about the Jews". Note to self: avoid talking about this with parents, as they seem rather odd and are large. Handed in a nice coursework piece directly downloaded from the internet, 48% in mock, possible grade C if she pulls her finger out and stops reapplying lipstick and listens" All this in 30 seconds. I could do that then because I was still under 35 and hadn't yet had the lack of sleep known as kids. I would struggle now. I would definately struggle at past 60. At past 60, I probably would't even be able to pronounce the names on my register. I sometimes struggled at 30. Yes, I mean you Ozibamwamwye.

Classroom presence. At 30, you are OLD. At 68, you'll be DEAD. 13 year olds in my class were amazed, as, as a precursor to explaining hyperinflation in Weimar Germany, I regaled them with tales of what things cost when I was their age. They flatly refused to believe that a packet of crisps EVER cost 5p until I told them that this was 34 years ago. Then they were, like, "oh, yeah, that's like, so long ago. Did you have the decimals then?"  Imagine their respect for you when you are as aged as the dinosaurs. And imagine how madly removed they would seem from you, as the teacher. They'd be like little aliens. Christ, I had to ask them what "bare good" meant, and was it BEAR or BARE, and they actually looked as if they pitied me. It might not seem important, but it is, because a crucial part of teaching well is about making connections that can bring a subject alive. Hence, when discussing the use Elizabeth I made of portraiture, we also looked at media images of modern rulers and celebrities.I knew who the celebrities were.  The age gap at 68 is too big. The points of reference are too disparate. X Factor and Preparation H.

It's fucking knackering. The job starts at 7.30 in most secondary schools, ends at teaching last lesson, in theory, by 4, prepping and out the door, excluding meetings, by 5, followed by a few hours marking and prepping at home, probably a day every weekend, holidays during coursework and exam season, meeting with parents, year meetings, subject meetings, coursework moderation, mocks, parents evenings. Standing on your feet pretty much all day (you can't teach sitting down now. It's not like my school days, teachers cannot sit at a desk and set exercises while nipping out for a fag now. It's all leaping around to interactive whiteboards and walking between desks). Not to mention the intellectual tiredness engendered by teaching 6 lessons a day and having to remember it all. I am tired just thinking about it.

Sodding have some respect. Teaching is not a job for the faint hearted or less than committed. It's a rare teacher that teaches for 40 years, and they bloody deserve to retire when they want to, on a decent sodding pension. It's a low paid job compared to other equivalently qualified positions, it demands vocation and care. They are not just teaching, although that's hard enough, they are cheering your kid on on Sports day, running after school clubs, being kept up all night on school trips, picking up naughty kids from the corner shop for shoplifting, mopping up blood, listening to stories, helping, drying tears, stopping fights, building confidence, doing the same assembly EVERY YEAR, saying the play was brilliant when it wasn't, watching out for bruises, buying shirts for the kid that comes in grubby, and telling jokes to make the form group smile. Many teachers work themselves into the ground and thank the lord for their pension, which is now being reduced for them. This particularly affects women, who have taken career breaks to raise children, and will now have to have an average pension, instead of final salary. For many women teachers, this has halved their pension. Teachers now face working longer, for less. You may say, fair enough, I have to. But this is mean  spirited. These people teach your children because they want to. How will teaching attract graduates now? 4 years of study and debt, no teacher training funding, for what? A low salary, a reduced pension, and working till 68. What graduate with a decent degree will choose to go into teaching now? If I were in the same posistion again, I would not.

And the argument against final salary pensions for teachers is disingenous. The government pretends that they are bankrupting us, but in fact the latest ONS stats show that the pension bill from public sector pensions is falling. The majority of public sector pensions are small, because the majority of public sector employees are women, and low paid. The average public sector pension is less than 4K pa. The average public sector wage is less than 16Kpa. The average teaching wage, after 5 years is 29K. The average teaching pension is 10K. Compare this with the bank bonuses meted out this April, of 75K plus. Or the tax breaks given to large companies by Osbourne.

Now go up to your childs' teacher and say you support their strike.

Barbecue widowhood and weight gain.

Well, I am a barbecue widow this weekend. Husband is finally realising his dream (and that of approximately 85% of men) and trying to make a go of cooking huge chunks of meat over a large grill.So he's off to Stowmarket Food Festival as Bubba Grills UK,  (see here for where else he's going, I lose track) to punt his ribs and flash his pork butt at people, hoping against hope that they will love his vinegar based sauces and actually allow him to make some money out of meat and fire. I am praying too, as setting up a new business, not to mention a catering one, is not cheap, folks, not at all. And while he is out flaming things and worrying that we'll be eating the leftovers all week, I am the one doing what I always do, Monday-Friday, namely get kids up, deal with kids all day, put kids to bed. Only now I do it on Saturday and Sunday too. (Truth be told, it is mostly me that deals with the kids Saturday and Sunday anyway, but at least I get to stand in the kitchen cooking with the radio on while he plays the annoying dinosaur game, and I get to go to the loo alone while he distracts them).
The only real difference is in the evenings. I am used to either fiddling on the PC or sewing machine once the kids are in bed, not just because I like it, but because husband likes to watch unmitigated crap on TV. We have no real mid-ground here, aside from the History Channel, and even I, as an ex-history teacher, can have too much of Hitler and Tony Robinson. I cannot watch anything involving cops and cameras, I detest talent shows and live scenes of nonentities caterwauling/dancing/doing whatever, and we can't watch the news because we argue. Newsnight has been known to reduce us to mean silence with each other for over a week, but that's my fault for marrying a Tory. There is some mild agreement on cookery shows, but only in that we both agree we can never, ever watch Masterchef without wanting to punch those blokes whilst saying to them "Punching doesn't get tougher than THIS". But when he is absent, oh yes......
Now, now is the time I can watch costume drama without havng to explain which period things are in or him pointing out the cars are actually wrong. I can watch as MUCH CARY GRANT as I like (which is a lot), and admire handsome vampires without having to hear that really, they wouldn't be able to do that. I can cook meat-free meals (husband always looks up from a meat-free plate with a sad little face) and eat nothing but pudding for my tea. And herein lies my weight gain. Or at least, it will by the end of the Barbecue Season. Because last weekend, all I ate for my post-kids bed tea was jam roly poly, a 'la Hairy Bikers. Tonight, I have dined on Lemon Pond Pudding, a'la my nan. Next weekend, I fully intend to eat Eve's Pudding all night. Because normally, I can't be bothered to do a pudding. Nobody in my family eats them. They all eat cheese instead. Nary a sweet tooth or suet love between them. It seems greedy to knock a pudding up, just for me. But as there's no-one around but me this weekend, I don't care. Here is a recipe for Lemon Pond Pudding, and jolly good it is too. I can't show you a photo, because I ate it all. You can also use oranges instead of lemons.

You will need lots of eggs and arm strength for this, if, like me, you are blender or mixer less. I have plenty of eggs, thanks to my hens, and tonight used the monster shown in the photo, proud possessor of 3 yolks. Poor Boo-Boo, that must have hurt.

4 eggs, separated.
5 tablespoons lemon juice
zest of one lemon
30g soft butter
300g caster sugar
4 tablespoons plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
350ml milk
Oven at Gas 4, no idea about electric.

Beat the egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon zest, and butter together until it is as thick as you can get it. Then gradually add the sugar, flour, salt and milk until you have a thick batter. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. This took me sodding ages by hand and made me swear to fork out for a mixer again. Fold this into the other mixture. You want to retain some air in it all. Cook in a shallow dish, in a tary of hot water, or Bain Marie, as proper cooks say, for between 45-60 minutes. You are aiming for a fluffy sponge on top, and a lovely lemony pond underneath. Eat it. All. Now I am off to watch "North by Northwest" and burp.

Pretend that you are calm, and you are calm.

When I was teaching, I had as a mentor a veritable dinosaur of the Secondary system, a teacher who had been teaching for over 25 years and was, amazingly, still not weeping every weekday morning. He gave me much advice, some of which I had to disregard if I wanted to keep my job, and one bit which stuck with me, because it worked. He told me never to loose my temper, even with a class of 35 Year 9's, last lesson, and that before I lost my temper, the best thing to do was to act loosing your temper. Because once you've lost it, you're not in control. But whilst you are acting loosing your temper, you get all the benefits of the shock and awe response, but you can also add little Bette Davies touches that will add to your mystique and legend, and you will be in control. So, before the Year 9's tip you over the edge, pause, and go scenery chewing crazy, stop them in their tracks, and then calmly switch into neutral and carry on. Pretend you haven't done it. You will only ever have to do this with each class once or twice a term. Particularly if, as I did, you misjudge quite how much slamming a door can take and the pane of glass falls out and smashes everywhere. They never played up again.

What has this to do with my usual blurbs, which are usually about parenting, eating, hens, with the occaisional Conservative hate mail? Well, I have of late been losing my rag. It comes in cycles, and I have found that when son develops a new skill, daughter will quickly develop a rival skill or whine to compete. I have weeks that go like this:

son: "Mum, MUM, MUUUM! Look at me do this!" (recites entire Quentin Blake book at me without looking at pages, just holding it above his head)

daughter: "MUM! Mummmmeeeee! Look! Look! I can do this!" (does inexplicable Haka like dance with ugly toy dog she got for her birthday before throwing it at son)

son: "Nooooo! I was READING! You are a stupid stinky bum head!" (sings stinky bum head song repatedly)

daughter: "I am NOT you are and that is not reading it is STINKY like your BUM!"

Slight pause while both of them decide whether to cry to gain most attention or fight. Fight. Pause while they examine themselves for wounds, as wounds command high Mum Attention points, especially if there is blood. Hence, son has stopped screaming if daughter attempts to scratch or bite him, as the end result of the scratch or bite is more pleasing than actually stopping it would be. All this while I am on the loo, trying to have a poo. Now, I have had a few moments of late where I have flared up at this, and ended up shouting the mum equivalent of "stinky poo bum" at them, and we all end up shouting, weeping and feeling bad. I did try to separate and calm them, using the divide and conquer rule, but this fails as it only adds to their sense of injustice, and whilst moments before they were mortal enemies, once in their respective rooms, they become allies, cruelly separated by their Nazi of a mother, and tap the dividing wall, whispering messages to each other. I fully expect to see a Poster of a Honda Fireblade on his side and a pony on hers hiding an escape route. Thing is, they just annoy me. They know how to do it really well, and which whiny voice is going to get the most response the quickest, like they have a little ipod of whines in their heads and they're there thinkg "Hmm, it's almost teatime, and I want some attention. Shall I go for the feeble voiced, weak sounding whine and plead for a snack? Or shall I revert to baby speak, and introduce a sad sob effect, implying I have been abandoned, and then ask for a biscuit?" And I am, by 4pm, cooking, end of tethered, and very liable to explode easily. It couldn't go on.

So I decided to go back to my teaching books. I re-read the very useful "Getting the Buggers to Behave" and various other tomes and I can honestly say that I'll be able to make them behave beautifully when they are 11+ in a classroom setting. But really, it's my old mentors advice that has been useful. And not only in acting mad, but in acting calm too. I decided to reverse things and pretend to be calm when I wasn't. I have spent all week pretending calm and responding calmly, acting calmly when really I wanted to yell. I've been anticipating flare ups and out-calming them. I have been unruffled by the fights, I have NOT yelled. And it has totally freaked them out. Initially wrongfooted by my zen-like responses, they were flustered. But then they calmed down. They've had a good week. And so have I. I am calmer. Maybe there's something in Zen and all that, because by pretending calmness, it has actually, in part, descended upon me. Of course, it helps that I have earplugs.

I am alone! So alone! Oh well...

I've been silent for weeks as a)i've been making the most of family time and b) any spare time has been spent harassing local councillors about local issues re: ANOTHER FUCKING TESCO. I will get onto the Tesco (I have to sick the word up) but for now, this is a quick post to say that rest assured, many, many posts will be coming your way very shortly. Why? Because for the forseeable my evenings will not be spent in sofa tv watching with spouse (me: "Is this some sodding camera and cop thing again?" him: "Yes, it's good, look the fucker is..." Me: "i'm going to bed with my big fiction book of murder"), or concerned conversation with spouse (him: "Do you think every boy is like that?" me: "yes"), but alone. I will be alone because husband is off barbecuing, baking, frying, whatever you do with ribs and half a pig. He's at Bjorn Again, he's at food festivals, he's at fairs, he's at concerts, music festivals and a 4th of July celebration. He's pushing the power of the rib to people and thoroughly enjoying preaching the pork to meat eaters. He's tossing them, basting them, doing all sorts of things at all sorts of festivals for weeks on end while I do not attend. I do not attend because 3 and 4 years olds get bored pretty quick at country shows and do not find barbecues that interesting for, like, 4 days. So we stay home, and eat salad. If he ever makes it big and does Glasto, then we'll go. Me, i've got weeks worth of Bogart films stacked up, a stash of pear cider and some good books. My intention is to spend the lone evenings reading, sewing, watching bad sci-fi and writing increasngly psycho letters to the council/MP, and blogging, oh yes.I will need patience in buckets, not for when he's gone, but for when he gets back. For it is then that the kids start reacting. Some time end July. He has a week off. Then flat out till September. He still has a day job.
I let him go. I encourage it, provide balm. Because he's going to be knackered, the family will recover some time in October. He's going to be grumpy, the kids are going to wonder about the bearded man who wants to read them stories, and they will be SICK of me.But, he wants to be head of his own thing. He wants to have a job he likes, and a timetable that will, eventually, be family friendly (so in 4 years time he might be able to take the kids to school while I do the rest), and that I applaud. But, I don't even like ribs. And i'm going to be very, very bored of reading a Suzuki GSX manual to son as a bedtime story.
Good job I have a big fucking Tesco opening near me soon. And a planning permission for 1,000 homes. That should give me direction for my barbecue widow anger. Oh yes.
Note to people: Sane(r) Sheridan will be back soon.

Lovage and lager.

This week, I am too angry about the Conservative plans to ruin education to speak of them. I am also tired of arbitrating child disputes ("His leg is on MY BIT of the sofa!" "No, your ARM came over my bit!" etc. etc.) to even try to summon up some will to be topical. So I retreat, as I do in real life, to my garden.

When we moved into this house, I acknowledged that the back garden would be home to large plastic toys, trampolines, and battered, footballed plants and chickens. Plus husbands' van, car and implements. It's 250 foot of brave, hardy flowers and scared grass. But the front garden is MINE. I inherited gravel. It was two different colours (pink and white) admittedly, with a few sad shrubs, and it was north rather than south facing. It gets the sun afternoon and evenings, meaning I can prop a chair there and watch the world go by. It is 40ft square of MINE. I killed/demolished the following: boring red shrub, terrible sharp grasses that were pretending to be pampas, and some sad looking weilegias. In their place, I have let the forget-me-nots and lupins seed like mad, planted lavender, aquilegia, geranium, and mints. I fancied an old fashioned herb plot, so in went Rosemary, Sage, Hyssop (puts cats off) , Catmint (attracts cats), (cat stalemate) Rue, Fennel, Valerian, and Feverfew, all of which clump, self seed and look after themselves. I also added Angelica and Lovage. I had no idea what they did, what they were for, or indeed, what they looked like. I only knew they were old herbs that even the Elizabethans had used. Angelica was a sweetener pre-sugar, and I knew that the Romans had planted Lovage here. I knew this because I used to do 2 lessons a year with my year 7's cooking Roman food to Roman recipes (honey buns, YES. Fermented fish gut sauce, NO). I could never find any Lovage in the shops.

And lo, this spring, they emerged. Within 4 weeks, they were easily the biggest things in the garden. Now, the Angelica has overtaken the Lovage in height, easily 6 foot tall and 3 foot wide with huge football sized flowers, magnificent segmented leaves. It is an impressive plant. Cow Parselys' huge inbred cousin. The Lovage is smaller, only 4 foot tall, but it has yet to put up its' flower spike. It is a lovely, green/blue color, and no less impressive for its' modesty. I love them. People ask all the time what they are. They assume they are exotic, foreign. No, merely old outdated, unfashionable elderly plants. I love them for it. But I have no idea what to do with them. Just like particular relatives.

I have yet to find a use for Angelica. BUT: Lovage is more approachable. Early appearing (March! the earliest leaves you can find), and late leaving (November last year), it is a hardworking herb. The flowers are scented, leaving caper like buds which can be eaten. It has many uses. Medicinally it acts as a mild antiseptic when made into a solution. It makes a tea which is a mild diuretic (makes you wee) and is a liver tonic. It freezes well. You eat the leaves, like any herb, but you can also blanch and eat the young stalks, like asparagus. All this I found from the few references in my tomes. I found NO recipes. NO description of actual taste. The only recipes I had were from my edition of Apicus, the Roman who blighted my year 7 cookery class. So, when it emerged this Spring, I trod towards it warily. I picked a bunch (reckless! I only needed, like, 2 leaves), and retreated to the kitchen with the kids.

"Here, kids, squash these leaves and sniff them".

"EEEEWWWWW! It MINGS!

"Ewwww, you are trying to make me sniff CELERY!" (Celery is the DEVILS WORK in this house. Not only is it stringy and crunchy at the same time, it doesn't even taste of anything except horrid, as daughter says. This was going to be a tough sell.)

In taste it resembles a peppery celery, with a lemony chilli aftertaste, mixed with what I can only describe as a smoked mint. I think it would lend itself enormously to barbecue rubs in place of the ubiquitous celery salt. I have tried it in tzatziki (fabulous), minestrone soup (excellent) and in salads (fab). A little goes a LONG way, it is so strong you only need a teaspoon in a vat of soup to flavour it with celery inplace of 4 stalks of the real stuff. Once the leaves get old (round about now till Autumn) you need the merest smidgeon of them, in salads just crush them and wipe the bowl. That's how powerful they are. The scent remains on your hands the way garlic does. Frankly, after chopping a load, my hand stank. But in a good way.

I think i'll be using it in earthy type dishes; it'll suit green lentils and potatoes. So far i've added it to minestrone in place of the actual celery, and here it has worked beautifully, saving my kids the hassle of fishing the bits of celery out, without tasting too strongly. I have found a Sophie Grigson recipe for Lovage soup which I will try out soon. If any of you live nearby and want to try, come get some. Otherwise, if you have a patch that's empty, shade, part shade, any sort of soil, I urge you to grab a Lovage plant. And the lager? That's for me, now. I'm a lot calmer after typing herb love, and may be able to sup a few pints without resorting to smashing my local Conservative club (they won, again. Nobody here votes, apart from farmers and elderly people who do well out of them. The rest of us, the young and middle aged of the village, will just have to wait till we are 80 to get anything, seeing as all the youth clubs, day centres, toddler groups, and Surestart have gone. 80 is the average age of the local council). No, stop. Lager. And Lovage. Till next post. Herb it.

Let myself go? Or go for myself?

I have been pondering my make-up bag. Or rather, what is left of it. My mascara has given up the ghost, past even the "add a little water and shake hopefully" stage. I own two eyeshadows from my wedding last year, and one face powder from same. One liquid eyeliner, currently still working if you shake it hard enough and add water. No foundation. I was too tight to buy something full sized that I never wear normally, so I begged little taster pots from the heavily dragged up ladies in John Lewis cosmetics department in Cambridge for the wedding day. I moisturise with leftover baby lotion and E45. I use only oilatum soap to wash my face and nothing else. I do not tone. I do not scrub. I have no ungents, no salts, no hair accessories. I no longer dye my hair (see previous posts as to why: i'm BALDING!), and thanks to my thyroid, have no body hair to speak of that needs tweaking, trimming or waxing. In short I am an ad man's nightmare. Whenever I respond to the YouGov surveys on buying patterns for womens products, they always ask if i'm sure. Yes, I am basically, economically, not a woman. Apart from tampons. And yes, I do resent paying for them, but I simply am not prepared to do the rag/mooncup thing.

Flashback to aged 19. My make up bag contained cheap everything, but a lot of it. Tons, oodles, of eyeliners for that just-got-up-frankly-scary look. Lipsticks. Pink hair dye. A lot of attention was paid to matching eyes to tights or leggings, which were lurid.

Onto late 20's- late 30's. The work years. Proper foundation, eyeliner, nude lipsticks. But most of all suits with killer heels to give me enogh height to reach the top of the blackboard. And be taller than Year 7's. But I always put it on, because even when you are re-enacting the Battle of Hastings, control in the classroom is much easier if your nose is not shiny. The vicious gossip of Year 9 girls is a big incentive to look reasonable. At this point I was spending a fortune on Weleda organic stuff that made not one jot of difference to my skin. I wore suits that were natty and had an extensive wardrobe just for going out (as opposed to now, in which I have an extensive wardrobe for walking to playgroup, which is the same as the wardrobe I have for going out the two times I have been out since kids).

So what did it? Why stop now? Kids, of course. Now, it's them first, a barrage of "Get dressed! YES now! Put the chickens DOWN!" and arguing the toss about the sartorial desirability of wellies and tutu with daughter whilst son tries to sneak out without cleaning his teeth and pick the chickens up again. I run through the shower, whizz the teeth, blob the saddened mascara on, and i'm off. I only do the mascara to make it look like i've got eyes. My night time regime is to wash my face and then go to bed, thankfully, sometimes remembering to scrape the old mascara off. Now I spend nothing. My shampoo is Alberto Balsam. My moisturiser is what is left over from the baby lotion stock I failed to use on daughter. (Wonder if I can use Sudocrem?) I have had the same lipbalm for years ( a big pot of vaseline. Not glam, but neverending).
Is it slummy? Nobody cares. Kids don't . Husband doesn't notice the difference, he's frankly grateful for any romantic attention and wouldn't care if I looked like Prince William. If I smelt, it would be a problem, but i'm clean. My skin is, apart from hormones, better. Who loses out? Make up companies, is about it. I am really no different, only older. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe I should spurn the jeans and t-shirts and rush out and get a Kate-A-Like dress so I can be Be-Yoo-Ti-ful and snag a Royal. Maybe I should spend the housekeeping on lipstick and skincare and not beer and playmobil. But maybe, just maybe, I'm right. Maybe (whisper it) women do not need to have a bathroom full of ungents to be women. Maybe they don't need to spend the equivalent of the GDP of Burma to be pretty. Next time you are having an angsty moment about leaving the house without a full face on, and looking Kate-licious, take a look at the mums on the school run. I bet you, 50% of them are wearing minimal makeup, applied in a rush, and possibly even a pajama top under that coat. I draw the line at slippers, mind.

Below are some of the natural, cheap, cheap, cheap things I do. I have uber-sensitive skin, a result of thyroid medication, and anything with parabens in, I avoid, as they can exacerbate the condition. So, I do it myself, as it is pretty much impossibel to buy anything paraben free without spending a million pounds. They all work, I promise. Although you should avoid the last if you have a strawberry allergy.

• Top cheapo money saving body-scrub: Olive oil, rock salt. Bit of essential oil if you fancy it. Can be kept in a jar by the bath for ages, and is very cheap. The Sanctuary chareg a fortune for this. It costs pence.


• Top cheapo bathiness niceness: Oats. That's it. Shove some in a little muslin bag (or baby muslin), let it run in the tap, leave it in the bath. Lovely softness to the skin will result. Also great for excema.


• Top cheapo facemask: Tumeric and oats. Soak oats in milk till they go squidgy. Add tumeric, 1/2 teaspoon. Spread on face. Look like monster. Wash off, with nice clean face underneath.


• Top cheapo all round skin thing: 1000mg of Evening Primrose oil every night. This is the best way to better skin and hair. From inside. Although don't use me as an example because I have no hair and my skin is dreadful. But if I didn't take this, i'd be worse.


• Top cheapo body moisturiser: Shea butter. Not the posh expensive stuff, the big block of pure stuff you can pick up wholesale. You can source the stuff at 15 quid a litre if you look, and a litre will last, as mine did, with a daily whoosh of it all over, for just over a year. (I'm 5ft tall. If you're 6ft, reduce that time. I am quite broad, mind). Better than little poncy pots of spenny smellies.


• Top cheapo hair deep conditioner: an egg, a tablespoon of olive oil, 1/2 a cucumber, blended in a blender, bunged on hair, clingfilmed head. Leave for 15 mins. Rinse off with tepid water (you do NOT want to be washing scrambled egg out of your hair), and lovely soft shiny hair is the result.


• Top cheapo facial moisturiser: One tablespoon each of Olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable oil. Two tablespoons of mashed/blended strawberries. Mix together, pop into a little pot, and leave it in the fridge for about 24 hours. It will keep for about 2 weeks, it really does work beautifully on your face. Unless you have a strawberry allergy.

A peaceful poo. Sort of.

In the past 4.5 years, I have managed to go to the loo, by myself, about 20 times. I am counting within that the time in hospital with ds and dd, post birth, when they were too little to move and a midwife sat with them while I staggered off and did a painful wee, the few times i've been out without the children, and my hen night and wedding days. Aside from that, I am always joined by two small people who seem to enjoy disrupting my attempt at a peace evacuation, and this had led me to patent my "Waiting Till the Last Minute Then Placating Them With Sweets" method, which at least allows me to do it in silence, if not alone, as they chew. If they haven't got a sweet to chew on, I can place a good bet on one of the following happening:

• A fight. As soon as I am mid-movement, one of them will hit the other, safe in the knowledge that I can't get them.


• One of them will suddenly say "I need a poo" and say this, increasing in pitch until I have finished. It's really relaxing.


• They will ask questions about anatomy that I am really not ready to answer yet.


• They will want to look at my final result and discuss whether it will get down the pan or not (charming, I know, but an obsession since an unfortunate episode onboard a Calais Ferry, where a large lady left behind a deposit we tried, and failed, to flush away, resulting in flooding that my son has never, ever, forgotten. )


• One of them will insist on spraying deoderant and comment on stinkiness. Weirdly, they don't do this with their father, possibly because they can't get up the stairs without a mask when he's on board.

They never, ever, come to think of it, go into the bathroom with their father. Wise children.
All of this was having an effect on me in terms of lack of privacy. I don't want to have to Derren Brown with the tampons. I don't want to have a 4 year old saying "don't strain, mummy" in my ear. I want to sit on the loo and read my way through Second World War books, like husband. Some of you may be sneering, and saying, shut the door, you fool. Be strict. I have tried this. I have locked the door. I have explained about privacy. Son and daughter now get privacy. I am ordered to leave the room, and am summoned back by a stately "I've been!" to do the job. I , on the other hand, do not get the same rights. If the doors are locked, it's no holds barred fighting, shouting, screaming, yelling, weeping, in much the same way that being on the telephone transforms them into little beasts of a high decibel level. It's even harder to poo when it sounds like a massacre outside the locked door, and you hear one of them shouting "Please, Mummy, he's really hurting me".

So I was astonished yesterday morning to find an empty bathroom confronting me. No-one followed me upstairs. No-one stood outside the door. They just waved me off. In retrospect, I should have realised. Because now the ante is upped. Now it's not all about how they can annoy me for 5 minutes as I poo, it's about what they can do in the five minutes while I poo. Here (see picture) is the result of the first private poo I have had in this house. Yes, five minutes to get the chair, open the cupboard, get the paints out and give the toy cars a very interesting paint job. It's a one off, I thought. This morning, again, alone, I descended the stairs to find an entire packet of Shreddies inside my children (well, about 2/3 of a pack. 1/3 was trodden into the rug). This afternoon, I came downstairs to find them frozen, mid opening of the Cupboard of Joy, full of forbidden treats that MIL brings over and I confiscate, to ration out over the next Millenium.
Frankly, i'll have to be at work to get a peaceful poo.

Ask your MP for a lift.

When you live rurally, it can feel as if you are forgotten by the London-ite government. So it's nice to see that our local Fenland MP, Steve Barclay, is here to fight our corner. As a (currently Stay-At-home-Mum: gotta have those capitals, it IS a job, you know) secondary teacher, I am extremely concerned that the students of Fenland have some of the lowest attainment, and aspirations in the UK. Few of them go to college or university. Many of them leave with few qualifications. The last review, in Dec 2010 concluded that things were still in vast need of improvement. Here's the Fenland Citizens take on it. So I was overjoyed to read on Mr Barclays' blog that, as a first in the family to university, and now a successful legal chap and Conservative MP, he is very keen to encourage more Fenland teens into tertiary education. Here is is on the subject, doesn't he sound real? And as if he cares, like, a lot? http://www.stevebarclay.net/ (click on campaigns)
It's interesting that he talks about apprenticeships as being the way forward. Interesting because this is the party line, and there are, of course, many more things that impact on students here much more keenly than the lack of apprenticeships, that he hasn't mentioned.

• Like the increase in tuition fees, that will affect Fenland students (all students in fact), particularly harshly, Fenland being one of the areas in the UK with low income, and high unemployment. Families are highly unlikely to encourage students into tertiary education if the debt they will come out with amounts to three times as much as they earn in a year. But Mr Barclay, with his huge personal earnings and lack of comprehension about the local area has presumably missed this fact. Maybe he thinks the loans are a good idea. I would think so. The Conservative party stands to do rather well out of the changes in HE.


• The reduction of the Building Schools for the Future fund from Cromwell school, Chatteris, leaving it overcrowded, oversubscribed, and with 1,500 students stuck in a building built in the 1920's. And of course, the complete removal of it from many other schools across the country.


• The changing of the curriculum to enforce the 5 core subjects, something which is manifestly suited to the independent sector and selective schools. Hence,local schools will slide down the tables. Students here are suited best by a curriculum which offers GNVQ, NVQ, as well as GCSE and the usual AS/A2 routes. The schools here know it, yet they will soon be forced into the Bacc, against independents and selectives that have been priming for it for years. This would be ok, if there were sufficient college places, technical colleges and sixth forms in the area. But there are not. And places in those remaining, and funding for them, are being squeezed. Plans to extend the College of West Anglia further into Fenland, are, as ever, hot air. Currently students in my home town have to travel to Wisbech or Cambridge. Fine, if you have a car or kind parents. Bugger off if not, because, well, the buses. See after.


• The establishment of Free schools, funded from the central education budget, thus taking away funds from comprehensives. Funding that was supposedly ringfenced, pre election. Free schools, under the banner of freedom, will essentially be selective, with personal guidelines on selection that are nothing like comprehensives. I think we all know what will happen here. Middle class parents, faced with the comps and Goves' little meany face squealing about them (just DON'T LOOK AT HIM! No, really, don't, it'll make you boak) and too knackered by the economy to pay private fees, will plump for Free schools for their Kates and Williams and thus create yet another tier in the education system. SEN students, students with projected lower attainment, and those from the wrong sort of background, won't get into them. This is already the case in many academies (wait for an explosion of them, too), and faith schools. I know whereof I speak: I have taught in both, in London, and lo! even though surrounding the schools there were estates (and not of the leafy kind) and deprivation, inside the faith schools there were no SEN, no poor, just a lot of kids of parents who had suddenly found God and faith at the last minute. And what happens to the local schools? The good kids with pushy parents leave, the SEN and leftovers get bunched together, funding dwindles along with numbers, and results, and there we have it. Why don't they just call us all Morlocks and be done with it.


• The loss of the EMA for all but the poorest of the poor, and then with conditions. The EMA may not seem very vital to those who have not needed it, and indeed, some who have had it, but round here, with low earnings commonplace, the EMA was a real lifeline in allowing students to stay on. It provided money for buses to college, for equipment. For the Tories to say that it wasn't necessary is a lie: not just disingenous, a LIE. I have taught many many students for whom the EMA was vital, allowing them to stay on and study in the face of parents who were not supportive, allowing them to bus to college, allowing them to pay for project equipment. Paper, pens, books, all of these are very expensive when you are 17 and you can't nick them from Westminster.( And hey, books? It should be that the schools and towns and villages should have libraries, but guess what...... no stautory provision for school libraries (despite Clegg having it as an aim, prior to Camerons' back pasage becoming his home), less libraries all round, in fact. Please check yours is still there).It is very clear, that in taking the EMA away, they are shoring up the tiered education system they so, so want to return to. Brideshead, floaty boatered men only need apply. Aren't the rest of you down a pit or something? We what? Well, a factory then. In other words, oiks need not apply. If you haven't got the money to 4X4 it to college, naff off. (And you won't be able to get a bus there. There are none left: see my next blog)


• A cut, in real terms to education funding. A cut that would be entirely unecessary if they were to, say, make Vodaphone pay some tax. Or even make Osbourne pay his moral fair share. But, no. So, teachers, tell you what, you work for longer, for less money, and less pension. And some of you, we'll lay off. Quite a few of you, actually. And don't even ask about Teaching Assistants. Even the Lollipop lady has had it.


• Special schools? Really, we need them? You wouldn't know it from the rate they are vanishing. SEN statements? Hmm, be ready to see them go.Now it will be up to YOU, as a parent to sort it, provided of course, the council agrees, now it's all been handily devolved. And good luck to you in Fenland, where unless you are elderly and a farmer, they basically look blankly into the middle distance behind you and pretend they are deaf. Transport to Special school? Gone. Pupil Referral Units? *puff* vanished. Read here. Parent liason posts: whoosh. In short, if you have a "problem" child, don't live here.


• Transport, in fact, to ANY school out of catchment, gone. This may seem reasonable until you live rurally, and catchments are nonsense. If you cannot get into your catchment school in my town (Chatteris), you must go to Ramsey, or Neale Wade. The school in Chatteris is small. It cannot take all the applicants from Chatteris. Some must therefore go to school outside of catchment. But now, the Council does not have to pay for it, under the brave new world of ConDem. Especially if you have a lovely, all tory Council like ours (who votes these people in? Seriously? I haven't met ANYONE who voted for them). So now we have a situation in town where all students at Ramsey school, have been denied transport to school. Notice given: 4 weeks. Parents? Angry, upset. Students? Angry, upset. Schools? Angry, upset. Council? Couldn't give one. A bunch of parents got together to lobby the Council and pointed out, quite reasonably, that 4 weeks notice of a change of this magnitude was NOT compatible with, say, REAL LIFE where parents need to work the hours of school pick up and drop off, or might not be able to find a job, buy a car and so on in 4 weeks. It says a great deal about the Council and this government that all it takes, to alter 10 years worth of school bus service is, well, 4 weeks notice and a government that won't tell them off. Will applaud them, in fact. As I write, the parents have lobbied and made a nuisance of themselves to such an extent (and good on them) that they have secured a temporary reprieve until the end of the academic year. After September, expect parents who dare to have children who couldn't fit into the local school to be up the creek without a paddle. Wait a minute....I know someone with a car.......
  

So, I am a little sceptical of Mr Barclay. But you may not think this all amounts to anything. I managed in my day, you might huff. I don't see why they shouldn't pay for the bus themselves. I didn't need paying to go to school. Huff puff. Course not. But think about it. I, Like Steve, was the first in my family to go to uni, even, in fact, to finish school. My parents had no cash. In fact, they were very badly off, under the last Tory government, inches away from repossession, my father having the misfortune to work in an industry that Thatcher decided she would like to smash into tiny bits. I went to uni because I got a grant. If i'd have had to pay anything like the amount students now will have to, I would not have gone. People who are well off to start off with do not grasp the fear that a debt that high can strike. If I had come from a nice family with decent amounts of money, I'd maybe think that much debt was ok. But if I came from a nice family where that proposed debt per year was the annual earning of my father, I might think twice. That's what it's like in Fenland. I don't think Mr Barclays' dad worked in an onion packing plant.

Likewise, if I owned a socking great 4x4 and lved in a big pile outside of town, in a nice bit, I might not see that people do, actually, need buses. Contrary to Steves' belief, aired in the local rag, that buses here are empty, I have never been on one that is. Possibly he just doesn't notice people whose incomes are under 40K pa. Because I regularly see students, the elderly, and yes, workers, on the bus. The bus whose service has been halved. The buses that can take students from one town to the other now don't exist at all. This is fine, maybe. Maybe you have a car. But maybe you don't. Maybe your mum can give you a lift to college and back. Or maybe she is at work. So maybe, now, you are a bit stuffed, having to take 2 buses to college, and back, the whole journey taking over an hour each way and costing you a small fortune, which you now don't even have the EMA for. If you miss the bus, that's it for 3 hours. And,( here's the funny bit) if your last lecture is after 4, you can't get back home again! The bus has stopped running! Hilarious! So much fun in the Winter, walking over 30 miles. (The ghost of Tebbit wails weakly: on your bike! In Fenland winds? ) If you want an even bigger laugh, just take a look at the whole run of bus timetables for the area (read my next blog: as I take a bus to March and fail to get home again, ever). Maybe, here's an idea, you should email Steve and ask him for a lift. stephen.barclay.mp@parliament.uk If you see him, stick your thumb out.

Knick Knack Paddywhack

Me: "What was all that paddying about then?"

Daughter:" It wasn't really about the biscuit, I just needed to say that" (for an hour, apparently, in increasingly higher pitches)

Me: "What was it really about, then?"

Daughter: "It could be anything, really".

I am envious of the sheer joy of the tantrum. How I long to do what she does: just pick a subject, any subject. The slightest slight, the merest askew look, and just roll, roll with it, until the yells and screams and whines have attained their own music and you've forgotten what it actually was all about. How much nicer you must feel when you've stopped. I can see her, enjoying the stopping of it. It is like she is trying on emotions, for size, for later, for adulthood. And of course, that is in a sense exactly what they are doing. How can a child who is happy and looked after truly know "sad"? My refusing to read the damn stupid Charlie and Lola book is not a reason to be sad. Losing a limb or having me burn the book, possibly. But there they are, trying on emotions, seeing how they fit. I once caught daughter in front of the mirror, doing a "sad face" and trying to cry, for no reason whatsoever. Then, suddenly, you're all meant to stop this nonsense, and stop being emotional and behave. This is school. Then you are a teenager, and for a brief flowering, it's suddenly allowed again, everyone expects you to be an emotional see-saw, so you are. Weeping because, in my case, that one out of the Psychadelic Furs was married, or because you were never ever going to get a Lippizaner stallion. Days spent, later, holed up in my room (which I was not allowed, NOT FAIR to paint black), wallowing in misery, listening to the Smiths and inflicting it on everyone else too. Losing my temper when my dad said I looked like Max Wall in my Goth get-up. Crying because some greasy fringed boy with the only motorbike (and thus, only way out) of the village didn't like me. But really, it could have been anything.

Same sort of time in your life, I suppose. Aged 2 to 4, you are trying out being without your mum, trying boundaries. Will she run after me if I sprint off? If she says "Right, that's it, i'm GOING?", how far will she really go? Round the corner? (If you are me, round the corner and then HIDE. Freaks 'em out. They certainly stop yelling). Screaming for attention. Now. And then, teens, not much different. Suddenly awkward again, only with the opposite sex also pointing out you're awkward, and preparing to leave your mum a bit more. You don't get to do it as an adult (with the notable exception of the year I was on a weird contraceptive pill that sent me into hormone overdrive, that was interesting. And the year my thyroid went hyperactive. That was tantrummy AND hallucinatory. People with back to front knees and faces. Which annoyed me.)Hopefully, by the time my two are teens my standard response of ignore, ignore, ignore, then say "What was that all about then?" whilst barely looking up from my sewing/paper/pint will work then, too. I will also know that the biscuit/boy/popstar/teacher isn't the real reason, either. Sometimes,we all just need to yell.

He's been out from 7am till 6pm. How will he stay in a classroom?

Son is due to start school in September (this is provided we get the school we need, but that's another blog). He's a bright boy. He's sharp, funny, and keen to read, pretty much can already. But, but but.
But: he spends all day, every day, outside. He needs 2 walks a day like a dog. He needs outside air and exercise, like, constantly. If he doesn't get it, he's like a sad gorilla I saw in London Zoo, pawing at the patio door and pacing. He needs outside. I need him to be outside. He runs, he jumps, he climbs, he's happy. He spent all day today in the garden, or out in the park. Even ate his lunch and tea outside. Inside is for bed. The bedtime story is a motorbike manual (Honda Fireblade, since you ask. It's quite a dull read for me).
But: he learns through doing. He's a boy. He wants to know how something works, he takes it apart, puts it together. Takes it apart, puts it together. Learns that insects don't take apart. Learns to observe. He learns, in short, by trying something himself, NOT by listening. If he learnt by listening, I wouldn't have to say everything 4 times.
But:he frets about noise and space. He, like many, many boys, like quiet, space, and time. He will take himself off to his room, for peace. He will avoid noisy, crowded environments. He likes familiarity. On returning from holiday, or even playgroup, he checks everything is as he left it. All rooms. His dad does it too. I don't know how he will get up the nerve to push himself forward at school when he can't even go on the trampoline if someone else is on it.
But: he tires. He is ready for bed at 7. So ready. Sometimes earlier.
But: he likes girls, and girls things, and dancing, and drawing, and imaginative games.
So? But school doesn't cater for boys like this. School, is all day, more or less INDOORS. Sitting, stuck. School is the death of playing with girls for boys. School is small voices lost in too big a class size. (I taught 35 per class, 40 one year. This primary is 25.) Son doesn't like playgroup when it's full (20 kids) because of the noise and sheer kidfullness. School is peer pressure. School is a long, long day for a 4.5 year old, and homework besides. School is learning by listening. School is not designed for active boys.
How do I know? I saw hoardes of boys at age 11 who were already faliures, already bored, already not engaged. Already examined and written off. As a secondary teacher it was obvious to me that boys learn differently. Most do not excel in the usual classroom setting of sitting, listening. As a result, I would pitch my lessons every two or three weeks to include oral and physical learners. Hard, with history, you might think. No, not really. Want to get how Norman England was controlled over to boys? Make the class desks into Britain, add towns and props. Now variously sack and burn some of them (I really did do this: we burnt little models of the principal towns William sacked. And little model sheep, too). Re-enact Hastings in the playground (again, I would advise ensuring that you hand control of the English army to a boy who will actually DO AS HE IS TOLD, rather than try to win). Build a mott and bailey. Get out and look for medieval ditches. Get them to present a show on UK vs Germany in THE AIR WAR. Cook some ration recipes. It's not hard, but it does take effort. We do not school young children well in the UK. Exams? That young? Why, they must be useful, right? Wrong. Useful for league tables, not for schools. I would automatically disregard SATS results at age 11. Within a year of secondary they were null and void, of no earthly use. So why do it? OFSTED. Stick 'em in a classroom all day, why not. Why not? Why not do as Finland and Sweden do, make the school day shorter, more intense, and outside a lot more. Their results don't suffer, in fact they are better than ours, and don't show the boy/girl discrepancy ours do. Why not, in fact, follow a whole lot of Europe and put them into school later? Why not? Ah, work. Mums must work. They must work, now, or lose their benefits. Funny how the Conservatives would seem to promise most for mums but deliver least. Now mums must practically deliver the baby and hand it over, chuck it over the childcare fence, wave it goodbye. No, school for them, soon as, and work for mums.

But how silly it is. Boys do not even physically develop the ability to fine hold a pencil until 6. Yet they are expected to learn to use it. Son can identify all letters, small words, all phonics. Yet, he can't hold a pencil and control it. They lack fine agility, they develop slowly with regard to fine concentration skills. But, they must be benchmarked, and labelled and boxed. My good friend got told at her last parents evening that her son had settled well, he was now like "all the others". Well, what a great aim. Assimilation. Submission. Loss of boyness. No. She's my friend, so she nearly punched the teacher. And yet, it's not their fault. It's the system. The system which is now worse: more guidelines, more strictures. Less ability to teach interestingly. Longer school days, longer hours. Thanks, tories, you are totally ensuring I never go back to teaching.
I will give it a year. Maybe i'll teach my own.

Princesses: what do they actually do, actually?

I inherited a house that was gender specific. When I say I inherited it, I mean that I paid a ridiculously inflated price for a 3 bedroomed semi-detached that we'll be paying off for 25 years after the Fens have vanished beneath the Wash. But I did inherit the paint jobs that were within it, and have sensibly decided to put off painting anything until the kids are past the smearing bodily fluids and else on the walls stage. The paint I inherited was, in my bedroom, dull white. Liveable. For years, probably. In the same way that you don't notice the pile of crap at the bottom of the stairs if you leave it there long enough and start automatically stepping over it like it's another actual step, after a while you don't notice the dirty dull walls and the requisite squashed mosquitos (Believe me, you live in the Fens, there will always be squashed mosquitos). The paint in the second biggest bedroom was Boys blue. The paint in the tiny bedroom was one shade off of neon pink. I could have put son into the tiny pink room, but as older sibling, and at that time, the one who could walk, he got first dibs. Daughter ended up pink. Pink walls, Pink, pink carpet, and white fitted cupboards with pink fittings.

At first, I tried to downsize the pink. I got a red and orange duvet for the cot-bed. Green shelves. It just looked like Tinkerbell had taken acid and invited that boss eyed Linda woman from those changing rooms programmes in, when she was drunk. There is no getting away from this much pink. I ignored it, even though when the sun hit the room of a morning it burnt your retinas. But then, daughter hit the pink stage. Now everything must be pink. Make me pink bunting mummy, make me pink curtains. I must wear my pink pajamas. I must have my pink Sleeping Beauty on the bed. Say WHAT? Go back a bit there. Sleeping Beauty? We have never seen the film. We have never seen ANY Disney Princess film. How can you know which one is which? Are they beaming Disney direct into your brain? Is there a chip in there? Why have they all got such lobotomised expressions? And what happened to Cinderella? She used to be strawberry, red really, and now she's peroxide? ( See pictures: one from the 1950's film, where she is officially "Titian" and one from now, where she looks like, well, any blonde idiot) And HOW DO YOU KNOW WHICH ONE SHE IS?

Sobbing, I admit defeat. Yes, have a Princess lunchbox, then, damn you. My defiance of the stupid Disney Princess, in fact any Princess nonsense has failed. Those books I read you, daughter, that featured feisty girls, and nary a pink idiot in sight, did they mean nothing? For Gods' sake, Mog the cat is a better role model than Cinderella! Mog has some oompf about her! Mog refuses to eat the fish and holds out for eggs. Mog doesn't fret about a dress. And Sophie, well, she has dinner with a tiger and goes out for tea in her nightie (possibly because the Tiger is in fact a figment of her mothers imagination, the excuse she gives Daddy about tea not being ready because she has been at the gin and left Sophie in front of Waybaloo, or is that just me?) So we go through a turgid week of reading Cinderella, Disney style as a bedtime story. We purchase a Princess doll with pocket money. I dress daughter in flouncy dresses. I wait.

And then. We are playing "Princesses" with the frankly simple looking Rapunzel doll and the dollshouse crew, who are wooden, have their faces scratched off and hair cut, and look like weird Bagpuss crossed with "Saw" bit part actors. When she suddenly says "What do Princesses do?"

"What do you mean? All the time?"

"No, after they do the marrying, what do they do?"

"Well, the stories stop then"

"What do real Princesses do?"

(Do not mention reality, which is basically : They get super thin despite being surrounded by Fortnums food, pop several out and be miserable, apart from when they smile opening things.And then they die.)

"Well, Princesses don't really do a lot, apart from meet people who like Princesses and wear dresses. What do you think they should do?"

"Fight dragons and be doctors to people and then have tea and do sliding on the slide, and then be friends with the dragon and have a ride".

"Well, that seems very sensible to me, and I bet real princesses would like to do that. Shall we just play something else?"

"Yes. (chucks Rapunzel, picks up manky Baby Anabel). Let's feed her to a dragon".

We go onto re-enact Andromeda and so forth. No more Princess. Rapunzel is still where she was thrown. And that, I hope, is that. Just to be safe, as a reality check, I have a tea towel from the local pound shop which shows the two badly fabric printed beaming faces of Kate and William, in all their glory, only, on a tea towel, and looking a bit weird. Although even the best photos can't disguise the fact that he's going on top, looking more like his dad every day and that she knows it. I heave a sigh of relief. For now.