Can I tell you what is driving me demented at the moment? The ongoing and everlasting chatter at our dinner table. Except this is not the normal type of chatter that you could expect. Oh no. This kind of chatter is the chatter that only a 5 year old could come up with as a tactic to avoid eating anything he doesn't fancy (in other words almost everything that isn't crisps or chocolate). He has decided that talking means he doesn't have to eat. So now he talks and talks and talks. Usually he doesn't actually want to say anything: 'Mummy, I just want to ask - er - um' glancing around the room desperately looking for something - anything to ask 'do they have walls at school?'.
Now I'm a big fan of conversation at the dinner table. Building blocks of the family and all that. But after an hour of procrastinating all the other plates have long since been cleared. Those still at the table are resting their heads on it, waiting for the great opinion former to decide to have a bite of cottage pie.
So we have a new anthem for dinner. It gets sung when dinner has gone on for long enough. And just occasionally, to help me retain a modicum of my sanity, I get to do some of the dance moves as well. Yes, at our dinner table all we need is A Little Less Conversation and quite a lot more Action, preferably of the eating carrots variety. Bring it on Elvis: