ENGLISH MUM: never knowingly undercatered

Well, our Sunday was a rather lazy one. Hubby worked in the morning and committed the cardinal sin of forgetting to bring the paper on his way back (ten brownie points deducted) and in the morning the smalls and I watched the rugby highlights (I still don’t understand it, but well done, Ireland!!).

#1 and I got busy in the kitchen and had quite an enjoyable time. Feeling like some stodge, I knocked up a toad in the hole; I use Rachel Allen’s recipe - she melts an ounce of butter in the milk before making the batter and it’s always very successful. I did, however, forget that I’d run out of onions so no onion gravy for us. We made do with Bisto granules (sacrilegious I know, but what can a domestic goddess do so far from civilisation??) and served up with a huge dollop of mash and some kid-friendly peas and carrots, not even #2 uttered a word of protest. #1 made a rather fantastic chocolate fudge mousse for dessert which was probably supposed to feed about 8 - we got a rather large coffee cup-full each (#2 ate his in record time and then went round the table sponging from those of us who were struggling).

We then did our customary collapse in front of the telly with the papers and attempted yesterday’s crossword seeing as Hubby had let the side down so badly on the Sunday paper front. We managed all but one, the clue for which was: ‘osculates’ - a word I’ve not even heard of. We also held our collective breath watching the Carling Cup Final when poor John Terry got a massive kick in the side of the head and was out cold before he even hit the ground. The massive argument later in the game left us all shouting ‘boo’ at the telly, and did nothing but confirm my belief that it should be compulsory for every football player to have either their Mum or Grandma on the touchline; surely they’d behave themselves then.

Once we’d had some nice cheese and biscuits, got the smalls to bed (cue extra whingeing because it’s back to school tomorrow and they have to be ready and in their pyjamas before they can watch Top Gear) and finally sat down, a nice glass of wine rounded off the evening - with a toast to surviving yet another half term. Phew.