Kids Birthday Cakes
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. Continue reading
Dealing with Tantrums
My 4 year old daughter quite often erupts for unfathomable reasons: we’ve dished up on the wrong coloured plate, her milk isn’t warm enough or is too late. Sometimes she ruins the whole day, sometimes she’s hilarious with it. Mum and Dad differ however in our choice of tantrum-easing techniques… Continue reading
Picky Eaters
We mostly cook from scratch, always produce a regular Sunday Roast, occasionally dine out in fine restaurants and enjoy Indian and Chinese food. Yet somehow, we have managed to raise a couple of ‘chicken nugget’ kids – suspicious of everything except wafer thin ham and sausages… Continue reading
Me v. Cats #5
We returned from holiday after two weeks away and it was probably an hour before i realised that Claudette was nowhere to be seen. Again, I was anxious. She wasn’t my cat but I had grown to admire her and when no one was looking had stroked, fed her and played with her. I missed that little welcome we used to get from her when we came back from the shops… Continue reading
Mosquitoes vs Baby
The baby awoke yelling in great distress. We sprinted upstairs and burst into his room. It was immediately obvious what had happened. His face and head was covered in fiery red blotches. I counted them all: 37 mosquito bites.
Tomorrow poor Sammy would look like he’d caught Bubonic Plague but here and now demanded swift action. While my wife sought out the Savlon, I set about hunting down our foe.
My trusty Bugblaster took care of most offenders and I then mopped up the survivors with a slipper, smearing ugly splats of blood across the soon-to-be-emulsioned ceiling. Seven mossies in total.
Me v. Cats #1
Once, sleeping over at a friend’s house on a mattress, while my dog slept on the floor beside me, I awoke in the morning to the most curious sensation of pure physical tension. The air was still, heavy, dense and weighed down my bare chest. On my left, around waist level, was my dog, now sitting bolt upright, shivering intensely, staring to my right. On my right hand side was a black cat, also bolt upright, eyes locked with my dog. It appeared as if the latest installment of that eternal conflict was about to take place in the vicinity of my boxer shorts. All I could picture was teeth, claws. And blood. Continue reading