Flash cards at the tea table
I am becoming seriously worried about my mother's hearing – or more likely, it's a faulty connection between her ears and her brain. We've had two corkers around the Sunday tea table recently.
Firstly, Vanessa told her about applying for a job as a sessional play worker over the summer (ie, you work a session and get paid by the hour).
Only my mam thought it was a "sexual play worker", which we all agreed, while rolling around with laughter, was a very different thing, although the pay structure was probably similar.
And this weekend's little gem was when Nick was telling her about getting his first band T-shirts (ie, ones that have a picture of, or a logo of, a favoured popular beat combo).
"I don't think you should let him wear them," she said.
She thought we meant "banned" T-shirts.
I fear by the time he has reached adulthood, we're going to have to have flash cards at the tea table.
Nick went away to Scout camp during the last bank holiday weekend – three nights of peace for us, but three days of filth to dispose of when he got home.
He arrived back wearing all three fleeces he took and a waterproof, body unwashed, teeth uncleaned and proudly sporting the same pair of undercrackers as when he left. He was also wearing several pairs of socks.
Maybe it would be a good idea to point out to him that you CHANGE the clothes, not just add other ones on top.
Oh, and his trousers had pond weed in them.
Once again, the same bar of soap that I gave him two years ago made the journey there and back without ever seeing water. It's becoming the Alan Whicker of the soap world.
It really was just a case of lifting him gently by the ears straight into the bath, with a bar of carbolic and a scrubbing brush.
Swine flu is obviously terrifically amusing to 12-year-olds who fail to see how serious it could all be by next winter.
Apparently, Nick's class has a new gang called "the Flu Crew".
I told him off for not taking things more seriously.
My words must have struck a chord, because after several hours, he called me to his lair to look at a swine flu information game he'd created on Little Big Planet.
You get half-baked info on the disease and a chance to zap the virus with a background of saguaro cacti and the music of a mariachi band.
He's put it on whatever you share things on in PS3 Little Big Planet world... kids will know where to look!
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Weather for Sunderland
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -3 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South
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Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
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