TNG

It is my . . .how shall I put this (there's this line, see? Between not causing offence and downright dishonesty) fortune? Lot, Fate, Doom? to be peripherally involved in the raising of some children. Three of them, BBG, 8, 4, 3. (Between you and me, I suspect the G might very well have been a tad unforeseen, but hey, she's cute.) Every so often their mother feels its all a little much, and I get to take a turn.

But oh my, how rubbish am I at children. You'd think I have a lot of interests and skills that might usefully be passed on to the next generation, and I do. Gardening, music, basic carpentry, not to mention Reading, Riting and 'Rithmetic. Today, Easter Egg making.

I had moulds, three colours of chocolate, icing syringes, and pastry brushes. Oh, and an overwhelming lack of patience. The little blighters just wouldn't do it right. Honestly, I didn't mind not getting to the pan of boiling water because some pre-school pate was in the way, or spitty little fingers poked into the melting chocolate (I did quite enjoy the yells of pain though - honestly, if I've told them once, I've told them a hundred times . . .) or even a certain randomness in the thickness of the layers of chocolate. But somewhere in the vicinity of the mould would have been nice!

I kept tellin' 'em, Not like that, like this! I kept tellin' 'em, watch how I do it! Then I told them to bugger off. In a nice way. The younger generation? There's just no telling them. Ptcha.

I did buy quite a lot of Geomag (it was on half-price sale) on the grounds that a) it is fun to play with, b) if they swallow a ball it will come out the other end no problem, and c) if they swallow a bar it will show up nicely on the X-ray. But guess what? They don't even know how to play properly with that.