Peach or Rhubarb?

Monday 6th April

I have just eaten a peach and am now running my tongue round my mouth in a panicked kind of way as I have realised a) the peach tasted slightly odd and b) the knife I used to cut it up was the knife I used to mash the dog’s pills. I am due back at the vet this afternoon so must ask about the impact of canine anti inflammatories and antibiotics on humans. Maybe Mad Dog disease will get me before Mad Cow, I do find it slightly concerning that neither the US nor the Australian authorities will allow me to give blood for fear of contamination from Mad Cow Disease.

However I am not sure I am the first person in the family to be showing symptoms of Mad Cow disease. Drama queen no. 3 had a Band workshop this weekend culminating in a concert. Simon and I sat in the audience gamely trying to clap in time to the music. Given my sense of rhythm this is something I find challenging and I am constantly on the edge of my seat wondering when the conductor is going to turn and glare at me. Simon, in between looking at me in disbelief during a particular salvo of random claps, absentmindedly wondered why Drama Queen no.2 wasn’t playing in this particular band. I had to remind him that she no longer attends the school, having sadly moved onwards and upwards into a fee paying bracket.

We have just had a lovely weekend with friends from England. Their three children and ours, were friends as toddlers and since we have been overseas they have seen each other every couple of years for an afternoon or so. The six of them circled each other somewhat warily initially and then happily bonded. I have come to the conclusion compulsory physical activity is the great mixer, if nothing else it unites children against the parents. We spent most of yesterday morning playing around at our local beach with a canoe and hobie cat that we had hired. As the five older children sailed off into the distance, and more worryingly, out of sight on the hobie cat it did make me realise we have moved into new territory in terms of child independence.

I have to laugh, I recently gave a five year old boy a book as a present. He is a darling child, but he looked at the proffered text and then asked me in conspiratorial tones whether there was a more exciting present. This reaction chimes in with the three Drama Queens’ concentrated chorus of “don’t, please don’t’ when I suggest buying a book token as a present for one of the numerous parties they attend. Apparently nothing sinks your street cred more than having a mother who thinks books are an acceptable present. I find this quite strange as the Drama Queens actually love buying books for themselves and reading in general, perhaps it is just not cool to admit this in public in front of your friends.

I am in the middle of making rhubarb crumble – I am at the interesting ‘stew it to a sludge’ stage and really I don’t know why I am bothering as I am confident that Simon and the drama queen team will reject it on “nutritious, but nasty” grounds and I will be left alone at the dinner table morosely spooning in third helpings of the wretched stuff.