Pass me the rolling pin would you?

I have just been lying prone on the floor, rolling my right thigh, and in fact by default my whole body, sideways over a rolling pin. I have to say it was absolute agony so don’t try this at home as I heard Jenni Murray say only the other day on Woman’s Hour as with horror in her voice she commentated her way through a female sword swallower’s act. The reason for my rolling pin party piece, the agonizing performance of which needless to say, has the rest of the family in hysterics, is that I have been diagnosed with ‘runner’s knee’. This is somewhat depressing but I suppose marginally better than having ‘couch potato’s knee’ and it basically means I have to have a period of no running, lots of stretching, icing of knee and rolling pin exercises interspersed with visits to the male physio who clucks disbelievingly at the risible amount of stretch I have in various muscles.

As a light relief from the rolling pin I’ve just taken the dog to his second dog training class. This is a somewhat belated move on our part. Pluto having been a moderately good dog, albeit with an underwear fetish, has suddenly taken a turn for the dominant, and in an effort to move into alpha male position has started peeing in inappropriate places. The final straw was when he peed on Drama Queen No. 1’s school laptop. You can imagine the face of the IT technician at school when she took the laptop in and explained why it was no longer working. She was apparently sent straight off to the Science Department to fetch some protective gloves before they were willing to lay a finger on the machine. Following this major transgression Pluto has now been enrolled in the local dog training class on a Tuesday night and I have to say both he and I are enjoying it enormously. It does have its moments though, tonight we were in the beginners’ class with a large Doberman cross who was harnessed up in leather straps like a bondage devoteee. When his owners where asked if he had any particular issues they mentioned he liked “eating small dogs” and I don’t think they were joking at this point. Pluto is the smallest and generally yappiest dog in the group but even he could see the wisdom of keeping quiet and cowering behind me, given the frothing lunges the Doberman was making towards him.

Things are not going well on the cooking front. I am trying to be organised at the moment and do all the things advised by everyone from Martha Stewart to Good Housekeeping, mainly, plan your meals in advance, never go shopping a) without a list and b) when you are hungry, use the left overs in a series of tasty little meals etc. The children are not responding well to the new regime of experimental dishes. I did make rather a good stew the other day which they all wolfed down but I then made the mistake of telling them it contained anchovies; the reaction was as if I had suggested the main component was boiled cat kidney and as a result they now poke dubiously at everything I serve up. As for the left overs, if they didn’t want it the first time round I can tell you quite categorically they are not fooled by attempts to dress it up as bubble and squeak type dishes and even the dog looks a little sniffy at spinach surprise!