Fussy Eaters

I write this sitting alone, Bryn having stormed off in an impressive 8 year old flounce, muttering incantations and the usual stuff about this being the worst day of his life etc, etc. What could possibly have happened to cause such an outburst? Has a close relative died, the cat been told he has a incurable disease? Are we moving home and forcing him to leave all his friends behind? Perhaps I have banned TV, football and ipods for a year? No, my crime, dear reader is this. I put a tiny sliver of cucumber and a morsel of tomato on the plate next to his cheese sandwich. NEXT TO, you understand. Not IN. Not even TOUCHING.
I really don't know how I ended up with such a fussy eater but no doubt it is my fault. As someone who will try any food and enjoy 99% of it, it just doesn't really cross my mind to not like something. OK, I prefer some things to others, and the time I tried sheep's brains was not my finest gastronomic moment to date, but I survived and apparently it's very good for you.
When Bryn was tiny I did all the right things. I slaved over Annabelle Bloody Karmel's toddler cookery book and rustled up fish pies, fruit compotes, rice puddings and the like. He ate most things as long as they were fairly mushed up as babies do. Then, one tea time when he was about 18 months old I was happily spooning homemade food into him when he turned to me and uttered his first phrase. "Broccoli, off!" Stupidly, I took the broccoli off and never put it back on again and that, I suppose, marked the beginning of the end of my wholesome eating regime and also the start of my son trying to boss me around!
The thing is, as a busy mum, you just want to make sure they eat...something...anything. Fill them up so they sleep through and you don't get any calls from social services. I can remember being very reassured by a friend whose first born ate anything. She told me she would look on in disgust at the parents feeding crisps and chocolate to their toddlers as she smugly thought to herself "Well, Sam has just eaten shepherd's pie with cabbage and carrots followed by fruit salad." A few years on she had another child, a girl, and soon found that she became one of the crisps and chocolate brigade, just desperate to get something into her daughter.
Anyway, my eight year old appears to be fit and healthy. He would cheerfully eat nothing but cheese sandwiches, on white bread of course, but I do manage to get chicken, carrots, parsnips and fruit smoothies into him too. I do hope that one day he will eat a more varied diet, but if not at least he could get himself a place on 'Freaky Eaters' long with those poor souls who eat only potato-based products or jam sandwiches.

Happy Birthday Ronnie!

I have just found myself singing Happy Birthday to our cat Ronnie who is a year old today. This was at Bryn's insistence, you understand, and not something I would have freely engaged in otherwise.

Ronnie as a cute kitten

So, what has our little feline friend managed to accomplish in his first year of life? Here are a few of the highlights for you.

• He is pretty good at playing the piano and is often heard tinkling on the ivories late at night. Whilst this can be disconcerting it is not as alarming as his sister Coco who has learnt to turn the TV on and is apparently partial to a bit of late night viewing.

• He has managed to clock up 8 visits to the vet's including two anaesthetics, an operation, an endoscopy, several shots of steroids and two courses of antibiotics. Sounds like a normal night out in North Walsham to me.

• He has eaten approximately 30 kg of dried food and 600 pouches of meat but still prefers to chomp on rotting sparrow entrails and flies or to steal leftovers from the hedgehog.

• He is very helpful when it comes to wrapping presents, as I found out at Christmas. Even though it is August we are also still finding stray baubles which he knocked off the tree and rolled under sofas or behind furniture. They are currently sitting on the mantelpiece and will probably stay there until we decorate again in December.

• His best trick to date was jumping in a bowl of pea and ham soup and then proceeding to re-decorate the lounge with it.

• He is a handsome, affectionate, funny little chap and I hope he will be with us for many years to come just with fewer visits to the vet's.

Match of the Day

Having spent what seems like an awful long time yesterday watching 'A Decade of Great Goals' with my son and his friend, and listening to them talk football incessantly I have the following Breaking News for you.

 

The BBC have announced that, due to cost cutting, Match of the Day is no longer going to be broadcast from Salford Quays but from the less well known Millfield Road studios in North Walsham. Further savings will be made by replacing the regular presenters with Bryn 'they think it's all over' Harrison and Josh 'it's a game of 2 halves' Parker with guest appearances from Ronnie 'which one is Iniesta?' Harrison. Concerns have been raised about the relative lack of experience of these two unknown pundits, but fears have been laid to rest given that they are 8 years old and therefore know everything.

Blogging

A few weeks ago I really wasn't entirely sure what a blog was. Until a year ago I didn't even have a facebook page, mainly on account of hearing horror stories about teachers being sacked for inappropriate posts which their pupils had somehow got hold of.
A couple of close friends and family members had suggested I should start a blog and, being the sort who is easily flattered, I decided to give it a go, hoping that I wouldn't become the blogosphere equivalent of those poor souls you see in the early auditions for The X Factor. You know the ones; their Auntie Jean once told them they had a nice voice so they decided that going on national TV to face certain humiliation would be a good move.
I have learned so much in the last fortnight, all about URLs, HTML, SEO and many more exciting acronyms, as well as link-backs, hits out and kicks in the teeth (OK I made that last one up). I have been obsessively refreshing my STATS, waking up in the morning and the first thing I think about is checking my page-views. I know a lot of readers are friends and family, but I wonder about the fairly large following I have in Russia and hope it's not the KGB; and what of those other places, Turkey, Honduras, Greece, Serbia, South Africa? How have people there stumbled across my little blog?

Then there was the process of getting approved for advertising on my site which was a steep learning curve too. I keep checking what are hilariously called my 'earnings', at time of writing the princely sum of £1.54. One of my friends is due a cut of 30% for suggesting a post title so I reckon I'm left with about a pound. I also now worry about 'illegal clicking'. It sounds like the sort of thing which might go on in a contortionists' sex club, but apparently it is clicking on your own adverts or getting friends to do so.
So, for now I shan't be giving up the day job, but my nearest and dearest had better be careful not to do anything even remotely funny or you may end up as Normal for Norfolk blog fodder.

Prince George of Cambridge

Yesterday while I was blogging about Alan Partridge, it was announced that the new Royal Baby was to be called George Alexander Louis. They are all lovely names but I have to say that I shall always associate the name George with the rather dopey hippo from the children's series 'Rainbow'. The programme had as its main characters three strange puppets, 'George, Zippy and Bungle'. George was the most likeable of the three; as I recall a pale pink, mild mannered hippo. I have no idea what creature Zippy was meant to be, but he was loud mouthed and opinionated, and Bungle, a huge bear would definitely have had his name on some teddy blacklist believe me.
So, what other famous Georges does the new little prince share his name with? Well, there is George Osborne the chancellor, an arrogant, privileged man who has zero idea how much misery he is inflicting on most of the country; or if he does realise, he doesn't care. The only time he has shown any emotion was when he shed a tear at Thatcher's funeral, but that was probably only because he was thinking about the astronomical bill.
Then there is George Michael who can sing quite nicely but can't drive in a straight line and has a penchant for hanging around outside men's toilets.
Next we have George Best who was pretty good at football but unfortunately also rather good at drinking.
Finally, how proud would you be to share your name with that greatest of all men George W Bush? Not very? No, thought not. With parents so unimaginative that they gave you the same name as your father it's not a good start in life is it? Apparently George W doesn't drink but that hasn't stopped him saying and doing stupid things on a monumental, world-wide scale.
So, if you were the young prince looking for a role model which one would you go for? My money's on the hippo.

Advertising

Advertising is everywhere and with the growth of social media it is even more prevalent and targeted than ever before.
It was a few months ago that I realised how much adverts were affecting my young son. He came in as I was fighting to clean the bathroom taps and said "You need some Cillit Bang, Mummy". Later on he asked if I'd been miss-sold PPI. Both seem strange adverts to be putting on children's TV, but what do I know?
Well, one thing I do know is that I, for one, am not fooled by celebrities advertising products. Do they really expect us to believe that the millionairess, Davina McColl spends a Friday night with plastic gloves on, up to her elbows in mess using a DIY hair colouring kit? Hmmm, I think not.
I also know that I am thoroughly fed up with the adverts I get on my face book feed. Three recent ones included 'how to lose baby weight' , 'a dental treatment weekend in Budapest' and 'find singles aged 48-55 in your area'. They clearly have me down as a fat, middle-aged singleton with bad teeth, none of which are accurate.
One recommended site which did make me genuinely angry though, was for the EDL, a bunch of evil, fascist pigs whose ideology goes against all I hold dear. I know I occasionally shop in Waitrose but that was a bridge too far for me.

Blue Peter

I have recently been forced by my young son to watch the programme currently on CBBC where they are searching for a new Blue Peter presenter. They are now down to the final three, with the contestants having had to go through various tests such as showing viewers how to make a nuclear bunker out of a washing-up liquid bottle, a dead rat and a toothpaste tube. There has been sticky- backed plastic a-plenty and hearty cries of "Here's one we made earlier".
I was brought up on Blue Peter in the olden days when it took to the air on Mondays and Thursdays. It was pretty much the only programme I was allowed to watch with TV generally frowned upon and Grange Hill considered far too rough. No, Blue Peter was considered perfect viewing material. Nothing any ruder than an elephant crapping on the studio floor, nothing more risqué than following Tina's pregnancy (I'm still sure it was Percy Thrower's baby). If only we'd been aware of what was going on behind the scenes at Broadcasting House. It all began to fall apart with the arrival of Sarah. Even my innocent nine-year-old self could tell just by looking at her that she'd had more men than I'd had disgusting school dinners. Then, Janet got pregnant but they didn't mention that as she wasn't married. At some point one of them was replaced by a bloke called Michael. He excitedly told viewers how he'd appeared in an 80s music video. Unfortunately he omitted to inform us that he'd also appeared in a very different type of video altogether. He didn't get a big farewell programme, he just disappeared from our screens never to be heard of again poor man. Later on came the whole scandal about the naming of the Blue Peter cat and finally I'm sure one of them had to leave because of cocaine use.
Looking back, Dad, it would have been a lot safer to let us watch Grange Hill. At least that was acting and not real lives being screwed up before our very eyes. I just hope that the three Blue Peter presenter wannabes are given an on the spot drugs/pregnancy test at some point in the selection process or they could be in for very short careers.