The cretinous behaviour of my son
Nick has been forced to take food technology, or cookery as I care to call it, due to a cruel twist of fate in his timetable since Easter.
His first comment of "that's women's work" almost got him knocked into the middle of next week, along with a threat of personally sending him to London to say that to Gordon Ramsay's or Marco Pierre White's faces.
And to really make a good impression in his first week, he forgot to take any ingredients, or tell me he needed any.
Consequently, he had to scrounge a few spare sausages and pre-packed flaky pastry from friends for his sausage rolls.
As he didn't take a box in either, he ended up with a Tesco carrier bag full of crumbs and sausage chunks.
The second week didn't fare much better – he did remember to pass us the list of ingredients of dips and crudites – on Bank Holiday Monday evening for the next day's lesson.
Quite remarkably, Gary found a supermarket open that actually had natural yoghurt and hummous still on the shelves.
With odds of success like that, maybe we should have put the lottery on.
Week three was a great improvement.
We got the list of ingredients for spicy tomato soup the day he got them and we even invested in a flask, so the resulting soup came home hot – and very tasty.
But alas, the good run was not to last.
He forgot to tell me what he needed until I'd left work the day before.
A flurry of texts later established he was making French bread pizza, so I got off the bus home from work, bought the stuff, and walked the half-mile home.
Sorted, I thought.
Only to discover the next morning the bag of ingredients, left on the floor, not an inch away from where his school bag had been.
I'm afraid my frustration knew no bounds – I emailed his teacher, passing on my apologies for the cretinous behaviour of my son, and suggested he wash the dishes for the rest of the class.
That might jog his memory in future.
Regular sufferers of this column will be aware of my mother's eccentricities.
I don't know how I failed to mention this earlier, but this year she gave the kids selection boxes – for Easter.
Her reasons – she'd forgot she'd bought them for Christmas and had only just unearthed them from the European Pointless Goods Mountain in the front room.
And she stumbled upon them only just in time, as the sell-by date is about now.
This has been no problem for Vanessa or Ali, who can both devour chocolate at an astonishing rate.
Not so Nick, who squirrels his stuff away. The question is – will he endure out-of-date chocolate or throw it away?
The jury's out...
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Weather for Sunderland
Friday 10 February 2012
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Temperature: -3 C to 2 C
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