Things I wish I still Had…

• A flat stomach
• A small wooden tea set in a tiny wooden apple that I got in a Christmas stocking once
• The strongly held belief that one day I would dig up a live mouse and keep it as a pet
• The ability to eat anything I like without putting on any weight, and in fact at times losing it.
• That black silk smock top that I had for three years and which was gorgeous and which the tumble drier in Canada ate (bastard)
• A dolls house doll hat in a hat box with a magazine of fashionable hats in the high Victorian style that was brilliant and came in another Christmas stocking.
• The 7inch vinyl of a song called Honeythief by an obscure Scottish band that I gave to Geoffrey Shrimp when he decided he was going to be The Renegade Master.
• A coconut Boost
• My first pair of black suede Mary Janes that I got from Selfridges and which I wore until they fell to pieces and were one of the best pair of shoes I ever had
• The ability to wear thigh length socks and mini skirts without looking like mutton dressed as twat
• An embroidery of a mouse that my mum made for me when I was little and which I have now lost to my utter shame.
• The ability to stay up all night partying and not feel exhausted to the point of tears the next day.
• My gran
• The feeling of over the top excitement when I knew Santa was about to fill my stocking with cool stuff.
• My hat collection.
• Pert bosoms that stay up without the aid of underwires
• That grey moleskin waistcoat that Will gave me in 1991
• My full brain function and memory
• The ability to eat a pound of foam bananas without being violently sick
• The apple tree that my mum planted from a pip that was in our garden until we moved
• Those thigh length fake patent leather hooker style go go boots that I used to wear to frighten people in business meetings and which went to Cheezus this January due to over use.
• That brilliant old man coat that I bought for two pounds fifty from the charity shop and which had a plum coloured shot silk lining and which I left on a train in a fit of total idiocy.
• An unscratched copy of PJ Harvey’s brilliant stories from the City CD
• My best friend living nearby instead of in bloody Wiltshire (which is actually much nicer than Leicestershire, but further away)
• A grey cat
• Perfect recall of every song on Julian Cope’s St Julian album
• My friend Edmund
• Those leather Miss Sixty Hipsters that I knackered because I wore them while I was pregnant and then couldn’t find another pair.
• A Viennese Whirl from Sainsbury’s on Cowley Road in Oxford
• Tapas from Rocinanti’s on Whiteladies Road in Bristol followed by clubbing at Lakota
• A bath in the ubertub at the Malmaison in Leeds
• That square mug with a picture of a cow on it in which all coffee tasted so much better and which my mum smashed by accident when I went to live in Germany
• The black silk trousers with silver chrysanthemums all over them from French Connection when they used to be funky and I was a lot skinnier
• Money
• A decent copy of The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall that doesn’t have all the pages falling out
• The feeling of being awake
• Youth
• The burning need to adopt a fruitbat from London zoo and call it Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine
• Chocolate in the sweetie tin
• The desire for a pet spider monkey called Jemima
• A space hopper
• twenty twenty vision (I had it once when I was six)
• The belief that having a fresh pineapple all to yourself is about as luxurious as life can get
• A table at Gordon Ramsay’s Chelsea restaurant for dinner
• A phonecall from my friend Gina at work saying: ‘CALL THE COPS!’

Observing Children in a Bill Oddie Type Way

Staying at home and looking after your children is sometimes cooler than going out to work (note I don’t classify staying at home with kids as not working, due to the fact that working in M15 is probably less stressful than staying at home with kids) because if, like me, you spend a lot of time staring at your children in wide eyed amazement, you get to chart their progress.  We have already established that I am, like Bill Oddie in his post Goodie days, one of the world’s watchers.  Luckily, with children there is always something to watch.  Unfortunately this is usually followed by something to do, but beggars can’t be choosers, and as I said to a friend of mine recently, I did volunteer.  This was, of course before I realized how much pooh was involved.

 

By progress I don’t mean their growth and weight as per the ever tedious trips to the health visitor.  I gave up going to the health visitor after Tilly.  I know they’re putting on weight because I have to keep going to the shop to buy new clothes.  I don’t need seven years in medical school for that thanks (as my ex-husband once said when I was bleeding through yet another miscarriage and he pointed out that I was losing a lot of blood, which he could see due to the large amounts of blood about my person: ‘Thanks for that. I can see you’ve had some medical training.’ It made me laugh.  The doctor didn’t get it).  Yes, I realize that if it’s anything more complicated than nappy rash and a chart to see whether being a new mother is quite depressing (It’s a big piece of paper with the words ‘TICK YES’ on in red pen) I will have to make another appointment to see a doctor, thanks.  Thanks for making me wait for forty five minutes in a waiting room full of squalling babies for that.  Hopefully I’ll be able to return the favour one day when you really need to know something about chocolate cornflake squares. Now fuck off and leave me alone so I can see if you’re in the right percentile for pies.

 

Right, so proper progress is what we’re talking about here.  The cool stuff.  Things like the fact that this week Oscar has developed some great new vocabulary including words like:

 

• Beetle (usually followed by the words, ‘Beetle! BEETLE! BEEEETTTLLLEEE!)
• Big (enthusiastically with much flinging of hands. Big things are good things)
• Jenkin (means gently, but sounds so much better when squawked at top volume while you’re trying to do something he doesn’t like)
• Blankin (blanket. He likes ending words with ‘kin’. Not sure who he gets this from.  Possibly a hidden Albanian gene pool)
• Chick -un
• Bogey
• Fart

 

Excellent! Tick and a smiley face, particularly for those horrible bodily function words that all children should know as soon as possible to cement their place in the midget tribe.  Nobody is going to topple him from his pledge to be the rudest baby in nursery, and given his sister’s comments about ‘nards’ earlier today I feel that the title is safe in the middleweight league as well.  He already knows; pooh, wee, willy, bum and bugger as well as boobs, which he says in a Benny Hill type way, complete with grimace.  He is a star pupil!  As I commented in a previous blog.  Already a rude baby.  Although he can also say: please, thank you, ta, you’re welcome and sorry, when pushed.  Usually never when he should though, it has to be said.  He is what may be known as a polarity responder.  He gets that from me, bless him.

 

Sentences this week include:

 

1. ‘I’ve got it!’
2. ‘Put it on’
3. ‘Din nah ready now’
4. ‘beebies on telly.’
5. ‘Haysho under bed’

           

Not sure about the last two, quite pleased about the first three.

 

As well as these superb linguistic leaps he has also taken strides in terms of likes and dislikes particularly in the fashion stakes.  So far he likes:

 

• Headbands, particularly Matilda’s green glittery one, although he will wear the black velvet one at a push if Matilda has hidden the green glittery one.  The black velvet one needs lots of adjustments as it is quite springy and prone to boinging off his head, which is not ideal. It nearly blinded him several times this afternoon, but one must suffer for fashion.
• Hats.  I have already documented his obsession with Tallulah’s lilac sun hat, which he likes to smuggle up to bed with him whenever possible.  He was running around the garden centre in a very fetching beige pie maker style hat today and was most upset when I wouldn’t pay twenty five pounds for him to discard it cruelly as a huge fashion faux pas in the car on the way home.  He also likes to try wrenching the hats off of similar sized toddlers who are slow on the uptake.  This is a fantastic game.  He likes to try and wear his hats and his headbands together.  It is causing a lot of frustration and angst and he has not yet worked out that less is more in the world of couture.
• Shoes. He has a pair of brown shoes.  They are very sensible. We are not keen.  Today we visited the shoe shop and purchased a pair of blue leather sandals. He loves them so much he ripped them out of the bag when we got home and demanded that we put his shoes on immediately.  He keeps sitting and looking at them, and wandering around muttering about his ‘shoes’.  He also likes to wear Jason’s sandals if at all possible, although usually only one because two would be fatal.
• Wellingtons.  I have separated these from the world of common or garden shoes, as they are a special category. It is my experience that all children have a love affair with the Wellington boot at some stage of their development.  It is more important than the Lacanian mirror phase or Freud’s separation anxiety. It marks the watershed between baby and infant with places to go.  Oscar’s Wellingtons are a little roomy and come up over his knees, which make him walk rather like a small fascist, but as that is essentially what he is, and it slows him down enough so that I can catch up with him, I am not unduly bothered.  Tilly had red Wellingtons with rainbows on that she picked herself from John Lewis, Tallulah had pink sparkly ones from Adams, and Oscar has gone for navy with a football theme from Peacocks.  He is a very happy boy when he is allowed to stamp about in his wellertons as Tallulah used to call them.  As with Jason’s sandal, he prefers one, but will make do with both if pushed.
• Bags.  As he has two elder sisters it is almost inevitable that he would develop a passion for handbags.  The girls have very kindly given him one from their copious stash.  I note that they have chosen a rather masculine grey felt one with utility style pockets.  All is well in the world of the man bag until you look inside and the lilac silk lining gives it away.  Today he found my Charlie and Lola rucksack and has worn it solidly for four hours.  He only took it off when I refused to put him in his high chair wearing it.  I fear that is the end for me and Charlie and Lola.  This is much the same tragic tale as Tilly and my Miffy rucksack.  I don’t mind too much sacrificing Charlie and Lola, but if he goes near my Ghost bag he’s a dead boy.

 

So, there we have it.  A headband wearing, hat loving, Wellington clad boy about town with his Charlie and Lola man bag and navy sandals.  One who can quite clearly to tell you to bugger off while he’s eating his dinner and who is not afraid of his feminine side.  I am happy that he is learning to express his individuality.  My brother wore a frock, a brown anorak and wellingtons for three years of his life and I think his ability to love kittens is thanks to that.  I think men get the thin end of the wedge when it comes to fashion and Oscar is obviously going to set things right in his own inimitable way.

 

I feel that this is all very fine when one is in the tender years of youth, but as the years go on he may need some style counselling for which I am going to enlist the services of my excellent friend and all round sharply turned out fashion guru Andy Lewis, who has just spent £125 on dry cleaning and knows the meaning of style.  I’m sure he won’t mind dropping a few sartorial hints here and there.  I certainly won’t be asking the health visitor that’s for sure.

 

All this progress, along with his already legendary addiction to books (nursery mentioned it in his report!!), his ability to colour things in like a ninja and his preternatural hearing when it comes to anyone opening a crisp packet within three hundred yards of him makes me think that despite the fact that I am probably one of the most unsuitable women in the world ever to don the mantle of motherhood, I’m not doing too bad a job after all.

 

Even if I am hampering his development, surely this is a good thing? I don’t want him to be any more developed. He’s only nineteen months old for God’s sake.  I remember Jamie telling me when Tilly was little that he didn’t want her to watch television because he was afraid it would turn her into a drivelling moron.  I upped her watching quota because I was desperate for something to slow her down so that I could have a cup of tea in peace.  Despite all the research to the contrary, I don’t think it made a blind bit of difference, except that she now has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Pokemon related trivia and can sing all the CBeebies theme tune songs word perfect.

 

 

The First Question Time In June (The month. Not Terry and June, June)

More questions you type into Google.  More answers courtesy of me:

 

How To Say ‘Hoovering’ in French

 

‘Ooovering’ I believe.  A shrug of the shoulders whilst saying it would probably make it more French.  The string of onions and stripey jumpers turns out to be a terrible stereotype, and isn’t actually true, so save yourself the expense.  I know, it surprised me too.  I don’t think you need to bother though.  The French don’t strike me as a race that like to hoover.  They’re too busy eating exquisite food, being languorously philosophical in an impenetrably Gallic way and burning dead sheep at ferry terminals.  They don’t have time for such mundane activities as hoovering.  I once had an album by a band called Fat and Frantic.  It had a song called: ‘Last Night My Wife Hoovered My Head’.  It had a bit in French in the middle about hoovering.  I believe they used the verb ‘vacumer’.  I still think they were using poetic licence though.  I doubt that it was a song written to exorcise a traumatic life experience.  Just a guess… A bit like that Blondie song where she pretends to speak French. Tsk! These artistic types.  C’est Incroyable! (French for washing up)

 

Air Conditioning Abduction

 

If you’re thinking about how to do it, I suggest four things:

 

1. A healthy disregard for the law
2. A coat with extremely large poacher’s pockets
3. Ninja like reflexes
4. The ability to create an amusing diversion as in: ‘Look over there! My God! It’s a Frenchman hoovering his wife’s head…’

 

If you are the victim of an air conditioning abduction I have two things to suggest:

 

1. A wanted poster in your local Post Office.
2. Bereavement counselling (although there’s usually a long list.  How many of those on the list are there for appliance related losses I can’t say.)

 

Why Do My Goldfish All Swim In A Line?

 

Perhaps they’re auditioning for the Folie Bergeres?  Have they got tiny plumed tiaras on their heads?  That would be a bit of a giveaway. Try showing them a postcard of Pigalle.  If they try to shrug you know you’ve cracked it. Or they could be old fashioned British goldfish and are just forming an orderly queue to go and collect their fishy pensions.  Hard to say, due to the fact that they have crap memories and probably don’t know themselves.

 

Bassoon Lessons In Katy

 

And I just thought it was my stomach rumbling.  Thanks for clearing that up.

 

What Stops Children Doing Art?

 

You’ve got quite a few options here:

 

• Decapitation
• Sawing their arms and legs off
• Giving them five litre cans of paint from B&Q with no way of prising the lids off.
• Telling them too much glitter makes you go blind.
• Poking them repeatedly in the eye with a paintbrush every time they go near a felt tip pen.
• Faking a terrible art related death (i.e. death by inhaling a pritt stick) and then blaming them, thus creating a life long aversion in them.
• Telling them if they keep going they will grow up to look just like Neil Buchanan from Art Attack (this will probably only work if it’s a girl to be honest).

 

The Plural Of Penguins?

 

Surely you must be a French philosopher?  Are you being ironic and teasing me here, having answered your own question within a question and thus creating a horrible mobius strip of a question which can never truly be answered without setting the whole process in motion once more?  It could be Penguii…

 

Is Washing Up Liquid Poisonous?

 

Delia recommends it in her new how to cheat at cooking book.  Apparently you can make splendid meat and potato pies with it.  It gives your pastry a real lift.  Just buy some from the freezer section in the supermarket.  Roll it out and smear liberally with Fairy before putting it in the oven at gas mark seven.  It’s instead of egg glaze and it’s delicious.  You can also make fabulous cocktails with it including the classic Frothy Nail and Sex in the Suds.  Only recommended when making Martinis if you’re shaking and not stirring.  Always use original flavour Fairy and none of these new fangled flavours.

 

Names For Mice That Like To Eat Pineapple

 

Ingrid, Stewart and Aloysius Pennyfeather, the amazing pineapple eating triplets.  Their father was made into a pair of mouse fur eyebrows when he died.  FACT.

 

Nikki Lauda Spider

 

No? Really? I knew people often have the great honour of having roses named after them.  I never knew that racing drivers had mini beasts named after them.  That’s awesome.  Is it a bald spider with no eyelids?  Perhaps somewhere out there is a caterpillar called Lewis Hamilton.  I’d like a cake named for me please.  Not one with marzipan or jam in it though thanks.

 

How To Make A Hat Out Of Rubbish

 

• First, take your piece of rubbish (egg boxes are quite good.  Textured, and interesting shapes).
• Next, take your staple gun
• Using gentle downward pressure, apply rubbish to a suitable place on the crown of your head.
• Move your staple gun to a central position over the rubbish and the head and press down firmly until attached.
• Wipe the blood from forehead and eyebrows with a cloth.  If your hat has a veil made of rubbish this will do equally well.
• Voila, a fashionable hat
• You may want to call an ambulance at this point.
• It would be good to get someone to take a picture of you in your hat before the ambulance arrives and before you pass out, so that you have a momento of your adventures in the fashion world.  The ambulancemen are not known for their fashion conscious ways and may want to take your hat away from you.  This is just jealousy.  They are rather strong however, so it is best to be prepared.

 

Sawn To Death

 

As Tallulah pointed out only the other day, fighting over the television control is not as naughty as sawing someone in half.  Out of the mouths of babes…

 

If you have been sawn to death and are merely filling in the idle moments before the grim reaper pops in, I am ashamed of you.  There are so many other things you can be doing with your time, like eating cake or leaving all your money to the teaspoon sanctuary.  Get a grip and learn to die with dignity you computer nerd you.

 

If you are thinking of sawing someone to death, although the past tense suggests you may have already given it a whirl, heed Tallulah’s sage words and know that your time on the naughty step awaits you.

 

Things Not To Buy on a Saturday

 

·        Boll Weevils

·        Midget Gems

·        The Arc De Triomphe

·        A brown leather jacket like Bergerac used to wear (mind you, this piece of advice would see you through every day of the week including bank holidays)

·        The Duchy of Cornwall

·        Billy Elliot

 

Who’s Henri Pinafore Dress?

 

He’s the creator of the Rich Tea Biscuit, the self propelling pencil and the iron lung, all of which he designed to be used in concert as an enrichment of life’s rich pattern  He liked the word rich which is why he used it to describe one of the most boring, plain and crap biscuits in the world.  He tried the rich self propelling pencil and the rich iron lung as well, but nobody was prepared to fall for his ruses more than once in a life time.  He died of shame in 1999 when they tried to bring in chocolate coated  rich tea biscuits and pretend that they were nice instead of biscuits that you only buy when you’re depressed, broke and feeling guilty about buying biscuits in the first place.

 

You might be interested to know that the song ‘My Iron Lung’ by Radiohead was actually written in tribute to Henri Pinafore Dress who was in fact Thom Yorke’s great uncle once removed.  There is also a very rare white label vinyl pressing called, ‘My Rich Iron Lung’, as an ironic homage. 

  

And where are the thirty nine steps?

 

Stung By A Wasp And Now I’m Feeling Tired.

 

That’s just selfish.  Imagine how tired the poor wasp feels.  All you had to do was stand there.  It had to fly about angrily and then find a suitable piece of exposed flesh before burying itself arse first in your face.  Lazy, just lazy.  The youth of today.  No wonder the world’s going to hell in a hand cart.  It’s all me, me, me.

Sunday June 1st – Killer Monkeys Will Kick You In The Nards

I was up at ten to seven this morning due to having a face full of snot and not being able to get back to sleep.  I crept downstairs with all stealth hoping to:

 

1. Have a cup of coffee
2. Read a chapter of my book
3. Write some stuff

 

All without the aid of small children and the aggravation of having to prepare several different kinds of breakfast.  Not only do all three children like different things for breakfast, most of them like multiple helpings so that they have several things for breakfast each.  As they also get up at different times when left to their own devices this means that breakfast can start at the crack of dawn and meander on until nearly lunch time if not handled fiercely and with military discipline.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a brunch kinda gal myself, just not a dawn till brunch kinda gal, especially when it’s me preparing the brunch, and not eating it.

 

They had a reasonably late night last night, and I was up nice and early so I foolishly believed the chances of me getting at least one or two of the things on my wish list done before being joined by a midget was quite high.  I was so very, very naïve.  I hadn’t even managed to put the kettle on before Tallulah appeared like a wraith at my ankles demanding a cocktail of Shreddies and Rice Krispies.  We spent breakfast discussing last night’s Doctor Who, which is a two parter and now she is too excited to wait for part two and wants to know what she can do to speed up next week arriving pronto.  We then moved on to her birthday, which I am refusing to discuss with her until Tilly’s is out the way, but it’s not stopping her having a bloody good crack at it anyway.  Once she had finished her cereal delights I bribed her with the television, and although disappointed at the lack of Horrid Henry (which should be broadcasting on all channels twenty four hours a day according to her), she allowed herself to be bribed.

 

I managed to make the cafetiere and read a whole two pages of my book waiting for it to brew before Oscar surfaced from the stygian depths.  I thought he might also be bribed with a dry nappy and a bottle of milk in bed, but it seems he had other plans.  When I went up to see him he was attempting to stand on his head in his cot and shouting ‘Makka Pakka!’ in a friendly voice.  There was no way he was going back to sleep after that.  I gave up.  He didn’t want breakfast, he wanted telly, but I eventually managed to bribe him with the promise of fresh pineapple and he begrudgingly ate a bowl, and then a bowl of Shreddies and then some toast.  It’s a hard life really.

 

I remember lazy Sundays as a student where we would brew coffee, buy the Sunday papers and sit round eating toast and Hob nobs, listening to Byrd and Tallis and doing the crossword until lunch time when we would go to the bar, eat much food, drink some beer and do the pub quiz before going on a lazy afternoon walk in the hills.  It was about the time when dinosaurs roamed the earth and man was busy taming fire I think.

 

It’s only ten o’clock and much food has been consumed, in shifts naturally, one would never want to be off duty.  Laundry has been done, dishes have been washed and floors have been scrubbed.  The children have been through several changes of clothes, the traumas of brushing hair and teeth and are now scurrying around finding shoes and coats.  You would think that we kept our shoes and coats somewhere between the Philosopher’s Stone and The Holy Grail the amount of fuss they’re making about it all.  I have retreated upstairs leaving Jason to deal with them.  I know this is both cowardly and defeatist but he only got up half an hour ago and I’m already worn to a mere shadow of my former self.

 

In the amazing Tardis like nature of time passing in a mere line between paragraph breaks we are now back from gallivanting around.  Tilly is spending the day with her dad as a birthday treat.  She is nine on Friday, but he is not around then so he’s taking her out today instead.  Tallulah was hysterical with grief at being left behind, despite the fact that he’s promised her the same treatment on her birthday.  To save more wailing Jason and I took her and Oscar out on one of those meaningless Sunday jaunts which fills up lots of time otherwise spent crying and watching Horrid Henry.

 

It’s amazing what kids like to do.  Yesterday we had to go and fill up Jason’s gas bottle at the camping shop.  You think we’d taken them to Alton Towers, it was mind boggling the amount of pleasure they got running in and out of all the tents and caravans.  It took two minutes to sort out the gas bottle and forty five minutes to get them out of the tents.  Today we took them to the garden centre where they had a marvellous time in all the sheds and dibbling their fingers in the water features.  Oscar particularly liked filling all the empty flower pots with gravel.

 

Our garden centre is very posh.  They have a big deli bit where you can buy smoked salmon at twenty pounds per teaspoon.  They have also started selling Emma Bridgewater crockery at a third more money than anywhere else.  I know this because Jason nearly knocked a mug off the table which was only saved by me and my unusually quick reaction time (unusual because I’m usually the one doing the knocking in a comatose, sloth like way).  We left shortly after that, feeling that we had wreaked enough havoc for one day and that by the time they’d sorted out the CCTV footage we’d be long gone.

 

On our perambulations Tallulah tried to make some more money.  She is selling her silence at a penny per five minutes worth.  Jason feels that this is a good bargain and is willing to take her up on the offer.  He thinks four hours a day for fifty pence outlay is excellent.  He is also realistic that he can hope for ten minutes at the most.  She’s happy because she thinks a penny will buy her a Ferrari.  I’m not going to be the one to disabuse her.

 

When she wasn’t trying to earn herself some more money we had to have lots of discussions about how very exciting Doctor Who was last night and how she can’t wait until next week, and how long next week is, and when is Saturday and how many minutes are there in a week etc, etc…She wants to know why Donna Noble’s face has turned into a statue.  We always have discussions about how the television isn’t real and usually she’s quite good, but for some reason, with Doctor Who, which is her favourite next to Horrid Henry, she is absolutely convinced that it is the gospel truth, that and the advert for Cillit Bang which she wants me to get because it; ‘cleans in just one wipe mama!’  I remember when Tilly went through this phase.  She was obsessed by car insurance adverts and wanted us to insure our car with ‘chuchil’ who was her favourite.  She also had a soft spot for Ainsley Harriot and his dishwashing ways, obviously before she’d tried the cuppasoups.

 

We stopped for lunch at the garden centre and Tallulah coined a new phrase for the people who serve you behind the counter.  They are now called the serventry.  I quite like it. I’m hoping it will catch on.  We were talking at lunch about how my aunt has just discovered a place in Staffordshire called something like Monkey Woods.  Apparently it has two tribes of monkeys who are allowed to live in about seven acres of woodland as if it were the wild, and you can go and walk around amongst them all.  I was saying that this might be a fun thing to do and Jason who wasn’t listening asked me what I was talking about.  When he twigged that he might be required to go on a walk with some monkeys he was trying to put us off by telling Tallulah they might be killer monkeys.  She asked how they would kill you, so I said that they sing to you until your ears bleed.  She, who likes to take things that little bit further said that she thought they would probably just; ‘kick you in the nards’  The table went deathly silent only broken by me bursting out laughing, telling her off and asking her where she heard that all at the same time.  Apparently Daddy Jamie says it all the time.  I’ve said that I don’t care what Daddy Jamie says because he’s over twenty one, but she’s not to say that again until she’s twenty one.  She was not impressed.

 

She is just such a sponge for naughty things.  On Friday when we were coming home from my mum’s, Tilly was trying to tell us about her trip to Gulliver’s Kingdom the day before.  She mentioned that she had been on an unusual bike with handles instead of pedals.  Jason was teasing her and just kept asking: ‘But what colour was it?’ over and over again while she was trying to tell us something else.  She was doing a marvellous job of carrying on regardless when Tallulah picked up the refrain and then started singing it.  Her singing is always very creative and she managed to morph from: ‘But what colour was it?’ to a song which went along the lines of: ‘Tilly has never been to India – And done a pooh –One someone’s head – Tra la la – Or a wee – on a bicycle – in India – Tra la la’.  Oscar kept joining in with the tra la la’s with great enthusiasm, and it made Tilly and I laugh so much that we were actually crying.  Jason was very satisfied and just announced: ‘My job here is done.’  Tallulah was so impressed with herself that I thought she might spontaneously combust.  It’s official.  I have rude children.  Still, it’s better than dull children.