My salad dressing days

The men I know who profess a desire to have a ‘football team’ sized family are invariably the ones who are perpetually absent from the family home and do sweet FA when they are around. Funny that, eh?

Lately I’ve been subjected to multiple episodes of ‘Undercover Dad’, wherein perpetually absent Dads are given a latex face, wig and some dodgy clothing (in the style of Robin Williams in ‘Mrs Doubtfire’) so that they can pose as a nanny and spend more time with their Dad-deprived kids.

The families in question consistently have a minimum of three children – always more than the national average of 1.96 – plus a frazzled Mum (natch).

So: houseful of young children. Perpetually absent, under-involved Dads*.

Coincidence? You decide.

* disclaimer: this should not be taken to imply that all fathers of large broods are freeloading no-hopers – some fathers of large families are utterly splendid and enormously helpful…some even change nappies and do night feeds and take small children to early morning weekend football practice et cetera

Any mention of a handbag in this household is met with Wildean proclamations of ‘A handbag? A handbag?’.

And any suggestion of ordering raita from the Indian takeaway provokes an impromptu rendition of ‘Paperback raita, paperback raita…’.

Don’t know why this is so damn funny, but it is.

A charming children's film

Thank you, IMDB.

There is an almighty crash.

The husband and I rush upstairs to find the two suspects nursing minor injuries on the floor of the bedroom.

Neither will talk.

Thinking on our feet, we resort to police tactics and split them up, taking each to a separate interview room.

Suspect #1 confesses immediately: he wanted to know whether his twin sister was strong enough to give him a shoulder ride.

We quickly reassemble and put the story to Suspect #2 who is holding an opened packet of frozen spinach to her head.

She confirms Suspect #1’s version of events.

Both suspects are given a verbal warning and sent back to bed.

Asking me to choose from an array of five essential oils depending on my emotional state, I wondered whether she had one entitled ‘Wound up after a morning spent with squabbling four year olds’, but said ‘um, a bit stressed – how about the lavender?’

Asked whether the pressure she was applying to my tense neck and shoulders was sufficient, I wanted to say ‘No, I want to be pummelled to a pulp!’ but was concerned she’d think I had stumbled into her massage parlour expecting an entirely different kind of experience. So I said: ‘Yeah, it’s great, thanks!’

‘Nooooooooooooooooo! Whale song would be preferable to pan pipes!’

1. The swanky new dishwasher on its rinse cycle sounds *just* like the Eurostar entering the Channel Tunnel.

2. It is not possible effortlessly to bash the compressed coffee grains into the bin in the style of a Starbucks barista with our swanky new espresso machine. Grrr.

3. It’s a near miracle we were around to enjoy Christmas at all given that the rubber transformer on the rope lights began to melt just days beforehand.

4. Isabel Dalhousie is impossibly twee for a woman in her early 40s. Just what kind of young friends does Alexander McCall Smith have?

5. I am open-minded about the prospect of a Thai green turkey curry.

6. Fifty per cent of my children are going to be disappointed on or around 3 July next year, given that my daughter wants a girl cousin and my son wants a boy cousin.

7. I am stepping back on the applique bandwagon (because it’s easier on the waistline than working my way through Tamasin Day-Lewis’ tarts).

8. I am almost persuaded that your late 30s is the time to invest in some rollerblades.

So! Smug folk who believe themselves to be on a higher intellectual plain because they ‘don’t watch and/or own a TV’.

And yet…

they and their children often watch DVDs.

they are perfectly happy to watch iPlayer and the commercial equivalents on their PC.

they might even occasionally videotape TV programmes (documentaries – of course!) to watch at a time of their own choosing.

So, oughtn’t they be changing their boast to: “I don’t watch broadcast television live on a TV set’? (Hmm. Somehow not quite as punchy as ‘I don’t watch TV!’.)

Yeah, so just like the rest of us, eh? Except that the rest of us have (a) familiarised ourselves with the ‘off’ button and (b) know how to use it.

</rant>

This dahlia was painted by the immensely talented (not to mention utterly lovely) Kirsty Lorenz, whose stunning flower portraits are guaranteed to leap off your wall (in the sense that they are beautiful and arresting, not in the sense that they are likely to fall down and render your small child unconscious).

And hey, she’s just started selling giclee prints.

www.kirstylorenz.com