I always refuse to eat children’s birthday cake. I’m sorry but I do.Yes, because of that old ‘You’ve Been Framed’ clip of the birthday boy sneezing out his candles. Yes, because I can’t stand shop-bought cakes with sugar content so high, you can get cavities just by looking at them. Yes, because I happen to know that 4 year olds often forget to wash their hands.  All I can ever see when offered a slice of lovingly crafted Numberjacks No.4 or Pirate Ship is billions of micro organisms which I know are normally present on adult cakes.

On my son’s 4th birthday I, of course, refused a slice of his birthday cake delicious though it looked and even though I risked the wrath of his mother (and of my mother who had made it). Because I knew something no else did. Earlier in the day I had had the following conversation with Sam and his buddies shortly after I’d ordered them not to steal the sweets off the cake:

“OK what did I just say?” I growled as I returned to find the three boys each tightly gripping jelly babies still embedded in the cake. Although there didn’t appear to be any sweeties missing.

“We weren’t eating them Daddy” smiled my son triumphantly “We were just licking them!”

Another slice, anyone?