Pretender

How nice it must be to simply dress up in anything you like whenever you like. 

I speak mainly of my daughter who, aged 10, can change her clothes three or four times in a day depending on what she; wants to be, needs to be or pretends to be! School uniform one minute, garden rambling gear the next and then finally superhero complete with mask and cape. And she’s also so creative that with the aid of a minimal wardrobe she can change from Rock Star to Film Star to mother of four quicker than you can say Madonna.

It could be the latent actor in me crying out for a character to play. After all I donned many costumes and get ups during that time from the simple to the ridiculous and all in the name of art. I’ve also attended my fair share of costume parties over the years. I’ve been everything from Han Solo to Fred from Scooby -Doo, from Groucho Marx to a Ghostbuster. I’ve even been the half of Peters and Lee that could see (don’t ask!). Sadly I don’t get invited to those sorts of parties any more - which may be just as well as it’s a bit hard to pull off the blonde flowing locks and a-line dress while sporting a beard!

But I also envy those ‘adults’ who dress up for fun – the cosplayers of the world or the even more appealing Steampunk lovers. Unfortunately I don’t have the required spherical appendages, of either steel or Adamantium, to pull it off! Neither do I have the time for that matter which you have to put in or the effort to achieve a really good job. 

It you look around the internet you can see those that expended the man-hours and sweat to create beautifully crafted costumes, perfectly replicated down to the colour of the stitching and complete with detailed gadgets, gizmos or guns. These people look like they have literally stepped from the pages of the book or comic in question. Conversely, standing not far away is the person in a romper suit and rubber mask waving a water pistol who would be far better off hiding their head under their Star Wars duvet back home! Shame on you!

Of course being a father does give me some release. So until she stops I’ll just pull on this blanket and swimming goggles and join her…    

“Look! Up the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane! No it’s ‘WONDER-GIRL and her side-kick ‘STUPID –DAD’!”

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Developments

It is too hard to take pictures now because it is too easy.

For me the rise of the digital camera might mean better and more creative photography but marks the decline of the photo. I have treasured photos, not only of my own childhood but also of family and ancestors which, although gently fading, are at hand to be seen. In comparison I have over a hundred photos from my last holiday alone either still on my camera or filed away on my computer hard drive ready to be accidentally deleted at a moments notice.

The camera I remember the most from my childhood was a black and silver Kodak 44A camera that belonged to the family. All the photos from the first ten years of my life came from that camera and every one of them that was kept beautifully captures memories and places in the clearest and brightest colours. It produced large, square prints similar in size to a Polaroid snap, simply framed with a white boarder.

For my eighteenth birthday I received what I considered my own ‘proper’ camera. It was a Canon with zoom lens, focus settings and all manor of knobs and levers. Also it was a single-lens reflex; basically this meant that looking through the viewfinder you saw by way of a mirror through the lens and could focus and centre as you saw fit. Prior to that I had had a cheap 'flat' camera where the viewfinder was positioned miles from the lens and meant that if you were too close to someone you ended up taking a photo of their ear. The other thing I loved about my ‘proper’ camera was that it had a timer so I could occasionally appear in my own pictures, although I often did this anyway by taking moody shots in mirrors - I was a teenager still after all.

I would very quickly use a roll of film, alternating between colour and black and white, and quickly have them developed. From a roll of thirty-six I would be happy to get half back as what I considered to be good pictures. I remember Boots went through a stage of putting stickers on prints which they deemed to have “gone wrong” with helpful hints on how not to make the same mistake next time. These were quickly pealed off and discarded but the picture was kept; blurry doesn’t matter if the memory is in focus. Packets of prints were indexed and kept, but the good stuff when into albums or fames or up on the wall. It was this camera which chronicled much of my student life and which today provides much reminiscing (and embarrassment) on Facebook.

During my limited acting career the camera received less and less use. Finally the advances in technology, coupled with the change in circumstances brought about by parenthood, saw me finally abandon my camera for something more digital and portable. Although I have managed the occasional shot that I’m really proud off, and keeping some memories in place for the future, I still missed photos. My only solace these days is thanks to a little App called Instagram. It takes single, square shots which you can filter to give it that old school, faded look and can even a white boarder – yester-year revisited!

However, on a trip to Norwich recently we saw a shop full of old cameras, mainly for display but with some which I guess still worked. Nestled amongst them was a Kodak 44A and I was very tempted to take the full step back in time. But I was amazed and excited when my daughter on seeing them all declared that what she wants for her next birthday is an 'old' camera that still works, “Something to take real photos”. She’s nine years old and looking at what she has already achieved photographically on phones and little digitals I am expecting great things.

Looks like the future of capturing the past might be safe after all…

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Tree

We've trimmed the tree!

But before that came all the other traditions...

We picked out the tree...

I paid for the tree...

I brought home the tree...

I attempted to fit our stand to the tree...

I assembled various blunt tools before the tree...

I hacked bits off the ridiculously think trunk of the needle retentive type tree...

I again attempted to fit the stand on the tree...

I swore at the tree...

I hacked more from the tree...

I finally affixed the stand to the tree...

I stepped back from the tree...

I found myself leaning to one side mirroring the angle of the tree...

I threatened the tree...

I removed the stand from the tree...

I performed more surgery on the tree...

I put the the stand once more on the tree...

I said a silent prayer before stepping back again from the tree...

I saw all was well with the tree...

I wrestled for ten minutes with the plastic mesh that encased the tree...

I spent a further ten minutes removing the dead leaves and other forest detritus from within the recesses of the tree...

I attached weighty objects (such as books, shoes, pets, etc.) to pull down the branches of the tree...

I retrieved from the far corner of the attic the decorations for the tree...

I untangled the lights for the tree...

I openly wept tears of thanks that the lights worked beneath the now bowing branches of the tree...

I removed all tools, sawdust, bits of trunck, weights and pets from vicinity of the tree...

I called the family to the tree...

I shifted 'a little to the left' the tree...

I shifted 'back to where it was before' the tree...

I rotated it 90 degrees to show the better branches of the tree...

I vetoed the idea of finding another location within the house for the tree...

We all said how prefect was the tree...

I whispered "I wont say anything if you don't" to the tree...

We trimmed the tree...

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Donkey

With Christmas fast approaching parents everywhere are waiting with baited breath to hear the news – which part has our child got in the school's Christmas Show. But what is the must have role at Christmas?

Now traditionally the Christmas show would be a Nativity but that isn't always the case. During my own years a primary school the parts I played included:

A carol singer

A roving reporter

A dashing but dim fairy-tale hero

And a caterpillar!

But if your kid’s school is going for a full on ‘Star’ story, or derivative-Navitivative as is more often the case these days, then the part-pecking order is normally straightforward.

For girls there is one true goal – the Holy-Mother-Load that is Mary. All dolled up in blue dress, white scarf, blue headband and holding baby doll or plush-toy Saviour-substitute. She may not be much of an action girl, being far more homespun, but most girls still want to be Mary. Second fiddle is the celestial-big-hitter Angel Gabriel. As God’s spokes-person A.G. gets to chat to the parents to be, scare the socks of the shepherd and (sometimes) does some moonlighting at star-lighting in order to bring the Wise Men from ‘Far’ to ‘Here’. So more you’re go getting, globe-trotting type. Plus you get to boss the other Angels about!

Boys on the other hand get a bit more choice. You might think Joseph would be the top banana but is in fact quite a weak character. Years of pantos and kids shows just reaffirmed to me what most children instinctively know - that the most boring part in the whole show is the hero. Far better to be either the villain, such as Herod (who really needs to be stroking a white cat), or the comic relief, as in a shaky shepherd or a dippy donkey. Or you could wish to be King for a day!

Yes, when my school did finally go for a more traditional story I got just what I wanted - Wise Man number 1! Whoa-yeah! Better still because I was taller than the other two they put me in the middle to balance things out. However, I did fail by being last to arrive at the costume fitting. Our school was lucky in that parents made a lot of costumes, this was in the days before the Nativity-dressing-up isle that appear in Wait-cos or Tes-da supermarkets. Also parents donated them to the school so at the back of our stage was a wardrobe of costumes that would have kept The Doctor happy through a hundred regenerations!

Robes and gowns were ten-a-penny but the problem was hats. For some reason crowns weren’t an option (obviously Herod and his moggy had got there first). Instead there was one silver tipped sampan style hat (with fur trim), one orange ‘Mongol Horde’ hat (with a single fluffy spike, like a squirrel's tail with rigor mortis) and a fez (which was mine). Now, Matt Smith's Doctor has of course brought the fez back to the world and it was also the hat of choice for the great Tommy Cooper. But it didn't have quite the gravitas I was looking for from my Wise Man role...

King 3 - "Born this night to man the son of God!"

King 2 - "How shall we discover this child?"

King 1 - "Just like that! Ah-hr-hr-hr! Baby manger! Manger baby! Ah-hr-hr-hr!"

Luckily my mum put in some work and sewed a nice gold-lame doughnut around the brim which showed more Eastern promise. But somehow I just couldn’t shake the magic man bit as it now cried out Ali Bongo!…

King 1 – “We bring gifts of gold, frankincense and… a bunch of flowers!” 

But the performance was a success, even if I did get my leg tangled in my robe while kneeling to adore the My-Little-Messiah (batteries not included). It called for a little limb bending and knee wiggling as I stood up, but then I was The Gold-Lame King after all... 

King 1 – "Thank you very much!"

No, for me boys want to be kings first, Herod second with animals and sheep worriers bring up the rear. After all who really wants to be Joseph? Mary gets all the attention along with a bit of plastic with tinsel round its head! While Joseph is the ‘Everyman’ that most boys will almost inevitably end up being anyway - the stereotypical useless husband.

Mary – "I ask you to do one simple thing! One bloody thing! Book a room at the inn! But can you do that? Oh no!”

Joseph – “No dear. Sorry dear” 

Mary – "Having to come all the way to bleedy Bethlehem - because you were born here might I remind you - and in my condition!"

Joseph – “Yes dear. Sorry dear” 

Mary – “And as for the transport you arranged to get here... first class my ass...!"

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Fibs

Am I a fraud and liar? Not sure. I try to be honest in everything thing that I do and 'try' is the key word there. Could anyone say that they are always one hundred percent honest? Case in point, my son had to take on a big responsibility this time last year when I broken the bad news to him that (*** and anyone under the age of eleven should stop reading right now before I ruin your childhood for you ***) there is no Father Christmas!

I don't remember when I first found out this fact myself. Maybe it was so traumatic that I completely blocked it from my memory. More likely being the younger of two children I just started picking up on the fact from things my sister said. And there in lines the crux of my son's problem.

It was a big enough blow having to be told that I was Father Christmas, and by that I don't me I do the whole red suit, white beard and levitating reindeer bit. It was a shock to him I know, probably not helped by the fact that I threw in the truth about the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy at the same time - it may seem cruel but I was working on the 'sticky plaster' theory of ripping off in one quick go rather than dragging out the pain. It was hard for him but he quickly came to terms with the fact. But what he finds hardest is that he knows the truth and yet his sister doesn't.

Some siblings would love to have such a feeling of power and one-upmanship over a sister or brother. But for my boy it was more the fact that his sister can still feel the magic while he has to stand by and pretend. He therefore keeps asking when I'll be breaking the news to her, hoping for sooner rather than later. Possibly so that he has someone with whom to share the pain and maybe because he can't face another Christmas pretending or as he put it "lying".

And he's right, these are lies! How can you be telling your kids to to be honest and truthful one minute then spinning a yarn about a rotund, sack wielding housebreaker the next? It's the same problem you face when telling them not to be cruel to animals and then handing them a stick and a piñata! Okay bad example, after all the piñata had it coming for scoffing all the sweets in the first place!

Actually when you think about it the whole Father Christmas business sits at odds with the Ten Commandments thing. Come Christmas there are no end of false idols, not to mention coveting your neighbour's ass, or more likely their Nintendo 3DS. God and the little baby Jesus have to fight for centre stage with St Nick. And the no stealing or killing is tough to keep away from when you're a parent hunting the length and breadth of the country for the last available 'must have' toy of the year! And the little darlings will only honour their father and mother until they discover that you are the real stocking-stuffers!

No, I'm afraid my son will have to tow the line for at least a few more Christmases before his sister gets the bad news. But knowing my daughter, who is currently nine going on nineteen, she'll suss it out before we tell her. In fact she may well be pulling a reverse sibling-sting on her brother right now. She probably knows it's all a lie but won't let us know that she knows so as to make her poor brother squirm just that little bit longer!

It's enough to make your head ache. Ah well! It'll all be over by Hogmanay and until then just keep taking the tablets...

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Darkness

I am a creature of the night! Not one who craves blood - but cheese!

There is a special time of night reserved for me when everyone else has gone to bed. I'm a night-owl you see, often wide awake in the hours either side of midnight. Even if I should go to bed at a reasonable time I can't get to sleep without inevitably spending hours reading. But what I really want is a visual cheese fix!

I love movies and can see the good stuff at any-time as thankfully my family feel the same. But cheesy cinema is currently something only I enjoy and so is saved for private consumption. I refer mainly to those films once classed as being 'straight-to-video' but also 'cult' stuff. In my student days I would stay up till three or four in the morning watching such films, selected from a whole trunk full of videos, both shop-bought and recorded from TV, and the cheesier the better. So possibly a time-travel-triple of 'Terminator', 'Timescape' and 'Timerider'. Or following on from there, other Fred Ward classics such as 'Tremors' or 'REMO: Unarmed and Dangerous'. Even when living with MW(TG) I liked a little late night cheese and at this time the BBC would often finish their schedule by showing some prime cheddar, with the likes of 'Trancers', 'Deep Red' or 'Dark City'.

Sadly the onset of serious work brought these late night sessions to an end. My trouble was I wouldn't know when to stop! If left in front of a TV I would almost always find something to watch and before I knew it it was early morning with a full day of honest toil just waiting to happen. To make matters worst, when we finally moved over to cable from terrestrial TV about eight years ago it was like entering cheese-heaven!. Suddenly I had a veritable cheese-board of delicacies at my fingertips every night and not just movies. I was watching old TV programmes and classic cartoons into the wee small hours. I even fell into the trap of watching poker on TV (Not playing, mind - watching! A gambling voyeur!)

At about the same time I also gained a perfect excuse for these late night viewings with the arrival of my daughter. She, like myself, was never a big one for sleeping as a baby and even now would rather be up late than up early. When we took her to The Greenman Festival aged five she stayed up till gone midnight to scream and dance to the great Jarvis Cocker! ("Angela! Angela!") As a baby this was a killer for MW because awake all night also meant FEED all night! I would therefore do the 'gallant' thing and take the babe away from the milk bar. We would slip downstairs for a few hours and I'd watch TV, and more often than not my daughter would watch with me.

Obviously I stayed away from anything harmful to such a young and impressionable mind. However, the music channels proved a popular compromise and our late night sessions were filled with a real mix-bag. Her favourites at the time included OutKast's 'Hey Ya!' (no doubt for the fast pace and bright colours) and Kelis' 'Milkshake' (although this may have been a subliminal desire to get back upstairs for a feed!). But her favourite was The Darkness and 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love' - which if watched with a small child in mind, could quite easily be an episode of The Wiggles or Teletubbies.

But all good things come to an end and my daughter finally started sleeping through. I sensibly curtailed my late night viewing once more and reverted to marathon book reading again. But in the last year a new channel-to-cheese has presented itself to me with the arrival of the iPod and iPhone. Now, with some downloading or streaming, I can go to bed at a sensible hour, settle down and catch up on films both classic and cheesy, TV programmes old and new. When eyelids finally start to droop I unplug, roll over and embrace the darkness. Late night cheese may give nightmares to some but for me it's a pathway to peace...

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This Blog entry is dedicated to all the Facebook friends and family recently blessed with little joy bundles. In particular Mr and Mrs G and their new son RHG. May your evenings be full of music and magic!

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Sport

I'm starting to see a theme emerging in my posts as the random-word-generator keeps leading me to things in life at which I'm rubbish - sport possibly being at the very top of the pile!

Actually I don't feel bad about not taking part in sporting activities - for one thing I'm not particularity competitive. The closest I got to competing was at school sports days. In particular I remember the year I captained the Tug-of-war team for my house and won. Still immensely proud (should probably put it on my CV) and props to the other members of the team that year ("Go Crusaders!")

Of course sports days involve 'sport' in the very loosest meaning of the word due to its lexicon of non-Olympic events. Although can you imagine how great it would be if the 2012 Olympics included the likes of the three-legged race, the wheel barrow race or the hat-scarf-and-bag race. I'd certainly pay to see that...

"and here comes Eugene Bolt making a brilliant show and... Oh no! his bean-bag has fallen off his head so he'll have to go back to the last hoop! What bad luck..."

Of course the cyclical nature of the Universe, coupled with the advent of parenthood, has brought me back to the sports day and it's new connotation - the parent race! At the very first one I attended I waited with anticipation for the call to come for all dads. Now, we all know the stories associated with the parents race, how some take it a little bit too serious, even going so far as to turn up in shorts and running spikes. And given my track record I knew I'd out of the running for a medal, but my son would expect me to at least have a go.

I made my way to the line eyeing up the mix of football, rugby and cricket players lining up with a feeling of last place looming. But that didn't matter. I'd take part and that'd be all. However, once I stood shoulder to shoulder on that starting line it felt different. Also all those eager little faces watching you, each knowing in their hearts that their Dad is the greatest and will fly down the track like roadrunner. Suddenly I felt I had to go for it! The whistle blew and we were off!

Now, some have blamed what happened next on the fact that I was running in jeans that day. And possibly some might generously say that it was foul play but let me tell you the truth. As soon as we started I could feel that I'd pushed myself too far. I was over balanced by about the third stride and couldn't pull myself back. With the screams and cheers of the whole school buzzing in my ears I stumbled and suddenly saw the ground coming up to meet me. I hit the sun baked earth with my left shoulder and did a full 180 degree turn, ending up flat on my back half-way down the track.

Amazingly for me I wasn't embarrassed. Instead I totally saw the funny side and lay there laughing, delusions of speed having finally left me. Of course my poor son was upset but as I later explained even in running spikes, Lycra outfit and with a good tail wind I'd never have been first. So I stood up, bowed to the kids and moved unceremoniously back to were the parents I knew were stationed.

It was only when I got there that I started to realise that I'd banged my shoulder quite hard. Concerned friends said I'd probably pulled a muscle so should keep moving it. I tried but it became increasingly harder to do so and more painful. By the end of the afternoon I was in no doubt that I'd done some serious damage to my shoulder and a visit to the hospital confirmed that I had in fact broken it!

I therefore made school history that day for not only being the first parent to break their collarbone at such an event, but also receiving a lifetime ban from the parent race (courtesy of my wife). That was six years ago and at every sports day since when they're touting for parental-competitors I just smile and point to my shoulder.

"Try Eugene Junior's dad instead. He should put on a good show..."

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Voting

My kids are about to take part in the school and village version of 'Britain's Got Talent' and number one son has decided to perform a piece which he is learning at his Street Dance class. Of course it would be too simple if this were to just one song. Instead it involves three separate sections from three different songs. So, turning my baseball cap around and grabbing all manor of gadgets, I attempted to follow in the footsteps of of top DJ's like Fat Boy Slim, Mark Ronson and Gloria Hunniford!

To make the magic work required a laptop, my phone, a host of cables, a visit to iTunes and a sound effects CD. And after an evenings toil MC Wordy-Wordsworth completed the track. So pleased was I with the result that I even contemplated joining the talent show with my new mega-mix skills! But I wouldn't want to out-shine my son. It did, however, get me wondering if any of the others talents I've developed as a father could be used to secure my place at the Royal Variety Performance. Possible turns include -

The Stupendous Stinko - The master of illusion who can make any amount of pet poop disappear with only a shovel, some rubber gloves and a common-or-garden toilet!

Make-and-mender - No accident a disaster, no broken toy too small, no snapped piece of plastic too insignificant that this one man solvent-solution-surgeon can't fix it!

Zippo the Speed-reader - Be astounded at how fast a human being is able to read and digest the instructions for any toy in the same amount of time it takes a child to extract the article in question from its box, stare at it and ask "how does it work?"

Batteries Are Included - Will make any amount of power cells (of any size, shape or denomination) appear from thin air before you can say the words "I think its broken!"

The Man of a Thousand Voices (But None of Them Famous) - Can read a bedtime story with up to twenty characters all with an individual vocal pitch, regional accent and personal back-story!

So who would win? I'll let the judges decide...

-X-X-X-

Rendition

It's true, I can't carry a tune in a bag! Which is such a shame as I'd love to join a choir and go all Glee-ful for an hour or two. Or alternatively stand screaming into a mike prior to body-surfing a crowd at Glastonbury! That's not to say that I can't sing, it's just that I have a very unusual vocal range - somewhere between a bear growl and rusty shackles slowly dragged across a slate roof in November.

I have sung in public before and with some work I can just about pull it off - but to anyone who has witnessed one of these events I do apologise most sincerely. Instead I've perfected the 'mouthing-along-to-the-words' technique (as popularised by Milli Vanilli) for use at weddings, carol services and school gatherings. I even go so far as to do the pretend 'breathing' bit which most people forget but is important if wanting to truly fake it in style.

To be honest I can do without the singing but I do regret missing out on the teenage band bit. My instrument of choice as a child was the violin (due to my love at the time of 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' by the Charlie Daniels Band). But I gave up four scratchy years later when the demon fiddler in me had yet to emerge. Next I tried piano, which seemed a good, solid, versitile instument. But my hands refused to work toeghther on the keys with the right always doing the lion share. It's the same with my typing. As I watch my fingers tip-tapping away I can see the division of the keyboard is 20% left and 80% right - which in piano terms would have been tricky even for Mozart.

I'm glad to say that my kids have inherited their vocal talents from their mother, who has an excellent voice, and are now singing in choirs, shows or just for the hell of it. I still join in when they practice by doing the old Svengali bit (imaginary hat and cloak swirling around me), crying out,
"It's Piano! Piano!!"
"Breath from the diaphragm!"
"Where's the crescendo?!?"
Like the good kids they are, they humour my criticism with grace and then do it correctly all by themselves. But when my kids also begun picking up instruments the devil forgot Georgia and started visiting me once more.

My son has unknowingly followed my violin route (and I'm finding it easier to play the thing now than I did aged ten). For my daughter it's guitar - acoustic for the moment with the hope to moving to electric (hard for me though as hers is a quarter size and not suited to big, Daddy fingers). It finally all became too much for me last year and for my fortieth birthday I took possession of my very own mid-life crisis dampener - a four-string eclectic bass!

I'm still growling like a bear and scarping rusted metal - but now it's amplified with enough re-verb to rattle the bowels of a bull elephant!

Rock on!!!

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Bond

Is there anything better than hearing someone laugh? Okay, so there might be occasions when you don't want them laughing at you - even clowns find that hard sometimes. And, donning the hat of political correctness, we should be sure we don't laugh at the inappropriate. But "the laugh's the thing, with which to spit the sides of any king!". And I have always found that to make someone laugh gives me the greatest buzz in the world!

I have my father to thank for this love of comedy. He introduced me from an early age to radio shows such as 'The Goons', 'Hancock' and 'I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again', which I would learn off by heart. As a family we watched TV comic heroes like Eric Sykes and Tommy Cooper and classic movies from the Ealing comedies to Mel Brooks. I remember with pride the day Dad took my sister and I to a double bill of 'Blazing Saddles' and 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and lied about my age to get me in! My farther and I constantly chuck each other lines from comedies, both knowing the full routine that follows, and both giggle like kids to the bewilderment of others.

The love of laughter continues today with my own family. My wife and I can both say that our mutual attraction has a lot to do with our ability to make each other laugh. (You just can't beat a good snigger!) And now my kids are following on the tradition. During my years away from acting I have been able to supplement my need to perform by entering the role of "World's Silliest Dad". My life has been a stream of walking into trees, taking pratfalls, using silly voices and telling stolen jokes. All of which they have digested and now perform back to me daily.

And again there is the baton of classic comedy to be passed on. We have already presented them with Spike Milligan, Laurel and Hardy, Morecambe and Wise to name but a few. The latest being a family viewing of 'Young Frankenstein' - so not surprisingly there are now two more Marty Feldman wannabes strolling the planet, talking about "Nasty switches" and "Abbey Normal". And finally my daughter, at the age of 8, has memorised the whole of Bob Newhart's 'The Driving Instructor'.

I'd like to say "My work here is done" but there is so much more to show them and to laugh at with them - and I can't wait!

The family that LOL, is H2S...

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Mixture

With Christmas just over, and my belly arriving everywhere a good ten seconds ahead of the rest of me, it’s easy to see the evil that is cake! Everyone will tell you that I have an extremely sweet tooth and have a stronger addiction to chocolate cake than would be possible with any other recreational substance. But recently I also rediscovered the joy of baking them yourself.

Kids love to make a mess and mine are no exception. So the idea of chucking around flour, eggs and milk and then finally eating it is one that none of us could say no to. A Sunday afternoon can now pass for the three of us in the joyful whirlwind of sieving, cracking, whisking, melting and baking (although the inevitable wiping, washing and mopping are always a solo turn on my part).  We currently have two signature dishes; a lemon drizzle cake which practically dissolves of its own fruition and a chocolate cake (what a surprise) whose ingredients should entitle me to a seat on the board at Cadbury.

I can remember doing the same thing with my mum as a child but with one big difference – licking the spoon! This was always the Holy Grail of the make and bake, the blissful bit that came between the mess-fest and the concluding consumption. When the cake had been transferred from mixing bowl to tin my sister and I would jostle to be the first at what was left over. Scraping and gathering every last bit of the sugary mixture and then finally licking it from the wooden spoon which to a child was like something from a giant’s table. Forget the goose with the golden eggs and the singing harp here was the giant’s true treasure.

But, alas, this is no longer the case - thanks to Edwina Currie! Though it was decades ago the seed she sowed lives on. Due to fear of salmonella parents would rather see their child and a stranger playing catch in the road with a rusty knife than come within a mile of a raw egg!

And yet somehow, having never experienced it, they still feel drawn to the bowl. Somehow, instinctively they know it would be a taste sensation. But I’m a victim of society, living in fear of the ‘raw egg police’ who pounce on those that practice a combination of spoon licking and bad parenting. So despite their pleas and moans I deny my children their rightful reward. With a sigh they slip away to find alternative distractions until the cake is ready, while I condemn the true treasure of baking to the sink of sadness…