Weevilstepmother

The Sun and I have had a bit of baking frenzy this weekend. Well, he's been on holiday from school, and calories be blowed, it's just been astonishing that he has shown an interest in something other than the Playstation. Last week we made short butter biscuits with orange zest and vanilla. Coo, they were yummy in the extreme. We made the mistake of alerting the Brazil Nut to our impending bakerising, and she demanded a fresh sample when they were ready. Not that that was a problem - it was the perfect opportunity to return the plate of hers that's been languishing in my cupboard for the past seven months... Filled with excitement at the Cossack's imminent arrival, the Sun used our new alphabet cookie cutters to craft an array of biscuity goodness so: C O S S A C K. The letters were reverentially placed in a little tupperware for safekeeping and ceremonially presented on a plate (not the Brazil Nut's) to an appreciative Cossack on his arrival on Saturday night.

Yesterday it was gingerbread biccies. I'd forgotten just how many you can get out of one portion of the mixture, there seemed no end to them. No letters this time, but motorbikes, witches, pumpkins, crosses and clovers. The Sun keeps saying 'I feel really cross!' and storming into the kitchen, only to emerge smiling seconds later brandishing a gingerbread cross. Gets me every time... This morning, cold but clear, we decided to pay a visit to Grandma's with a bag of biccies. We walked through the woods, chatting and huffing our breath, and took a hidden path to Grandma's road ('I'm not letting anyone see me walking down the main street carrying these' ). Sadly, no Grandma, so we tied the bag of biccies to the door handle and walked back home, one of us stressing that the biccies would be purloined by person or persons unknown before the return of the oldies. The Sun chose our route home, and took us down the huge hill and through the woods again. On this journey through, we could see a poster at the entrance, carefully angled so that on our first pass we had missed it completely. 'Owl Prowl' it said. '31st October'. Tonight, then. Did the Sun fancy it? 'Oh, I went last year,' he said grandly, then with slight indignation, 'The man brought his own owl!' No, he confirmed, he didn't want to come again tonight.

Tallboy and I did, though. We wrapped up in multi layers and I donned hat, scarf and gloves. I didn't realise what an efficient insulator subcutaneous fat was until I lost most of mine. We grabbed our torches and trotted off excitedly to the woods (yes, the same ones where we went for the bat walk). A display of torch beams met us at the meeting point, and soon we were all trooping along behind the jovial and enthusiastic Owlist. 'We'll go into the woods,' he said, ' and we'll play a recording of a Tawny Owl. They're territorial beggars so that should bring them out. We didn't have any on the owl prowl I did last night, but it's a lovely night tonight and I guarantee you'll see one. In fact I'm so confident, I'll give you a tenner each if we don't.'

We stopped off at the first lecture point and were rewarded with a picture show in the pitch black, a small child next to the Owlist playing a torch in the general direction both of the images he was holding up for us and my eyes. At the next stop we had another picture show and then, advised earnestly to keep our eyes skywards on the lookout for any owlish silhouettes, the Tape of the Tawny was played - several Twits and some Twoos too. We stood still, torches off, silent, craning for owls. None came, so we upped sticks and headed for the next lecture point where we followed the same pattern of images, torch in eyes, lecture and Twit Twooing. Still no owls. As we made our way towards the next lecture point, the teenaged girl behind me was excitedly discussing what she was going to spend her tenner on...

Another lecture, habitats, food, hunting tactics, branching, nest boxes. Apparently owls have a special feature - did you know the left one is higher and bigger, the right one lower and smaller? A last attempt with the tape recorder - my neck was aching as I peered up into the sky in the vain hope of seeing a Tawny friend. They clearly weren't feeling very territorial tonight. Or maybe it was the moany teenager stood next to me loudly complaining about the pain in her neck that they were finding offputting. It did occur to me as we were peering up into the inky sky that it would be rather a good tactic for, say, a professional pickpocket to lure people into the woods with the promise of owls, get them to a quiet and dark place and instruct them to turn off their torches and stare up into the sky for five minutes. I mentioned this to Tallboy. 'Oh, it's OK,' he told me. 'I had my hand on my valuables all the time.' Right.

There was a sense of triumph amongst the gathered throng as precisely no owls showed up; I could almost sense the pound signs glowing in their eyes (the owl prowlers, I mean, not the owls - I couldn't sense anything about them). The Owlist tried to put us off the scent by having his friend take photos of us - this might not seem too bad, but imagine that you're in a pitch dark wood when suddenly some bloke points a camera at you and fires off the flash out of nowhere. Just ever so slightly startling, it was. Having disoriented us sufficiently, he enticed us to the car park with the promise of not one, ladies and gentlemen, but TWO owls. And there were. A Tawny owl and a Barn owl. In cat baskets in the boot of his car...

Method:

1. Skulk at home, off sick and miserable. Pine for that 'I feel so well I don't even notice that I am so well' feeling.

2. Receive apologetic email from Baldrick announcing the arrival of this week's organic veg box at school and apologising for his hectic schedule preventing his delivering the same as he would otherwise have done.

3. Alternate between excitement at arrival of mystery box of yummy vegetables and misery at having to go into work whilst off sick and rescue it before the Guardian of the Parcels in the front office decides to adopt it in your absence.

4. Drive to school, muttering.

5. Realise, as you turn into the car park, that you don't have to crowbar your way in to the last, impossible space because you won't be there long and can safely park in the bus bays. Perk up inordinately.

6. Pop in to see Baldrick. Log in while you're there. Check email while you're logged in. Note, with heavy heart, the huge number of fault reports which have been entered in your absence. Read a couple of reports. Weep.

7. Bid farewell to Baldrick and plod across to the front office. Bump into the Guardian of the Parcels, who expresses surprise and possibly slight dismay at seeing you. Stand your ground, forcing her to hand the hostage over. 'It looks very nice this week,' she says enviously. 'I would have given it a good home, you know...'

8. Have a little rummage through the box with the G of the P looking over your shoulder. Check the list of contents and debate with her just what the hell escarole might be.

9. Heft yummy veg box and make good your escape before the G of the P tries to take advantage of your weakened state and wrestle it off you. Totter along corridor with huge, heavy and leafy veg box clasped in your arms. Bump into German teacher who starts to moan about her problematic PDA. Cut her short by informing her that you are off sick, cast a meaningful glance at the vegucopia in your arms and pivot on your heel, shedding the odd cabbage leaf as you stalk down the corridor towards the door.

10. Dump veg box on the worktop when you get home and rifle excitedly through the contents. Waggle the fennel fronds and giggle. Discover large brown paper bag of beetroot and feel so overcome that you need to spend the afternoon asleep.

11. After dinner, put beetroot on to boil and head off to the office to finish programming Mum's 60th birthday present. Anticipate own engrossedness in coding, so set reminder on computer to go and turn beet off in an hour. Express surprise when computer reminds you to go and turn beet off, surely only five minutes have passed, good grief where is the time going, there's so much more to do and so much less time to do it in. Cease panicking and go and turn beet off, just in time before they boil dry. Leave them on the ring as it cools and get back to the coding, don't you realise it's the party in three days and you have to have a working program by then...

12. Emerge from crazed coding some time later, slightly dazed and very confused. Make your way down to the kitchen to rediscover forgotten pan of cooked and cooled beet. Remove lid, bring dish near and adopt the 'peeling beetroot but don't want any drips on my t shirt thank you very much' position (entailing a solid stance with legs apart shoulder width, a forward lean of the body towards the pan but not too close, and outstretched arms to peel those stainy little beggars with fingertips, gently).

13. Peel without drips or drops on clothing. A victory.

14. Slice the nudey beets into the dish. Note how small and sweet the last one looks. Decide not to slice it, and consume it quickly in one mouthful with no one noticing.

15. Try to keep innocent look on face and traces of beetroot out of sight as Tallboy enters the kitchen unexpectedly. Find that all your covering up is scuppered as he leans down to kiss you and detects beet traces at close quarters. Curses!

16. Flake out from exhaustion of feeling poorly, coded out and unmasked as beet thief.

17. Some time later, beets all snuggled up in the fridge and safely forgotten, retire to bed. Notice that your pre-bed wee is strangely pink. Panic hugely as a range of potential maladies conveyor belt through your imagination, each more disastrous than the last.

18. As you speculate about the nature of the mystery disease which has you, brush teeth idly. Stare in horror at the redness in the sink as you spit. Close mouth quickly in case teeth fall out. Take far too long to connect beetroot snaffling with both panics...

Serves One.

It's my birthday tomorrow. Since the Sun will be at Scouts tomorrow evening, and Tallboy and I will be out, I won't see him - so he's over here tonight (it's his week with the Ex this week, you see). We popped out to the shops to get some nice stuff for a special tea, and as I prepared to queue up with my basket, the Sun asked me gently if he might have his pocket money (due on the 1st of the month, he'll be charging me interest next...). 'I'll follow you home,' he said. 'I just want to have a look at some stuff over here... Oh, and when I get home, can you make sure Tallboy answers the door to me?' 'Sure thing, mate. See you later then!'

He got back about ten minutes after me, Tallboy duly answering the door to him. I was upstairs, and was instructed not to look out of the doorway as the Sun went past. I didn't. There was a trotting of feet up the stairs, a rustling, and a relieved door closing. 'It's OK now.' He appeared around the door frame, smiling shyly. 'Were you OK getting back then?' I asked. 'Oh yes, it was fine, apart from this bunch of teenagers I had to go past. One of them said to me "Oooh lovely flowers, are they for me?".' I hid the little smile which played over my lips by clasping my hand to my mouth in an 'oops, what did I just say?' kind of gesture. Which he misinterpreted by a mile. 'Oh, these silly teenagers say all kinds of nonsense,' he responded authoritatively. I kept my hand pressed tightly to my mouth, desperate not to laugh. I saw the realisation dawn on his face, and he stamped his foot on the ground. 'Oh! I don't believe it! You might as well have them now!' Off he trotted to his room, and came back proferring a charming bunch of pink roses. 'Happy birthday for tomorrow.' Thank you my darling, they're lovely.

Tomorrow evening I'll be heading off to play basketball for an hour, then it will be a quick shower and off to a nice Chinese eatery nearby for a meal with my lovely husband. I first discovered the restaurant when I went out with the girls from work the first year I started at the school. The veggie choices that were brought out for me were amazing, I loved every mouthful. The portions were staggering though, I had trouble finishing them. Even I, at twenty one and a half stone and with an appetite unrivalled amongst my entire acquaintance. I plugged away, though - there was no way this meal was going to beat me. The second time I went was a family outing to celebrate StepD's birthday, a little while later. Tallboy and I shared the veggie set meal. Out came those same dishes that I remembered. The same food, the same plates, the same portion sizes...

I coloured from my toes to the roots of my hair. I had put away an entire set meal for two. On my own. I had visions of the staff lurking in the shadows, pointing me out whispering to each other in Mandarin, taking bets on how much I was going to eat this time. 2:1 she eats her husband's meal as well, 3:1 she eats the table decoration and 40:1 there are only three legs on the table when she gets up to leave...