The Kids Are Alright

I admire my kids hugely. They are so full of life. You can hear the sap fizzing through them when you squeeze them, which I like to do as often as they will let me. I love the way that all three of them have chosen to pursue complicated futures. It’s not so much the path less travelled as saddling up a pig wearing a blindfold or building their own hot air balloons and just letting rip. They are all in for whatever life throws at them. It gets messy at times, of course it does, but they are game. They figure out what went wrong. They learn what didn’t work and what did and then, if they still want to, they go again. On a unicycle. They are brave and bold and brilliant.

You know that game where you can choose your fantasy dinner party guests? I’d choose them, alongside Derek Jarman, Marian Keyes, Hilary Mantel and John Peel. I’m not going to entirely waste the opportunity on people I can just call up and invite round any time I like, but they’d always make the cut. I love the feeling that when they arrive, all of life bursts through the door with them. I enjoy them telling me about what they’re watching and reading, making or doing. They are generous with their lives and enthusiasms.

When they were small and I spent 24 hours a day being told about Minecraft or Binweevils or Super Mario, I was less enthusiastic. When Tilly built an enormous flying boat out of cardboard I didn’t love it. When she created the immortal Mr. Butternut and the children revolted when I finally threw him away - again, not so much. When Tallulah became a small priest for weeks on end and insisted on blessing everything and everyone, I was not thrilled. Nor when she used to burst into tears if you couldn’t answer her Taylor Swift quiz questions at dinner. ‘WHAT. ARE. THE. NAMES. OF. HER. CATS? - I HATE YOU AND I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT LISTENING TO YOU’. When Oscar was obsessed by Astroboy and would furiously cry: ‘WHY? WHY DID YOU NOT CALL ME ASTRO?’ it was not my favourite or my best. When he became a pantheist and would quiz people in detail on their religious beliefs to convert them, it was not always comfortable. But, with time and distance and a working knowledge of how to adult, things are much more in proportion and those energies are being channelled into building great and interesting lives which I can appreciate without having my toilet door kicked in so that I can be quizzed on whether I’m a fan of Bacchus OR Dionysus.

In recent weeks the kids have introduced me to the Too Good To Go app. I know I am late to the party. I am unashamedly such a late adopter I dream of riding penny farthings down the cobbled streets, but when I commit I go hard. I am now obsessed by Too Good To Go. Ob. Sessed.

If, like me you had no idea what they were talking about, it’s a means by which restaurants and shops can offload their produce on you at the end of the day. They offer bags of food at hugely discounted prices. You reserve them on the app and then toddle off at the appointed time to get your prize. Living, as I do, next to the giant, luxury playground of Canary Wharf, I am overwhelmed with choices for delicious food and peruse the app half a dozen times a day, just in case.

It’s not just restaurants that offer stuff. Supermarkets regularly add things in. There is some kind of gourmet, French delicatessen in the hinterlands of Canning Town that regularly offer kilo blocks of foie gras for £20. A nearby health food shop had a deal on CBD oil and a brewery somewhere near Whitechapel was offering a dozen cans of low alcohol G&T for a tenner if you could get there for 10.30 last night. It’s a wild and wonderful world of bargains to be had if you’re in the right place and the right mood with a few quid in your pocket.

In order to make the best of it, you do need to be organised, which I am definitely not. I have singularly failed to grab many end of day bags of groceries from the local Morrisons for £4. I was annoyed about this until Jason pointed out that by the time I’d taken the tube there and back, I’d have wiped out any saving on the groceries and there was a strong chance we’d have come home to find we had a lot of celeriac that nobody will eat.

This is the problem. Most things you get are mysterious. Unless you want to party with a lot of foie gras washed down with G&T and a chaser of CBD oil, most places offer a ‘bag’ of items. You are told the original price and the discount, but you have to accept that you might end up with something that is undoubtedly cheap, but not necessarily tasty. I have had a few bags from Ole & Steen, the Scandinavian bakery I love. They have all, without fail, contained sandwiches and no pastries, not even a crumb. The sandwiches were delicious (except that one with jam and cheese on dark rye bread, which was unspeakable), but I had hoped and prayed for cake. My prayers were not answered and I felt sad. Sad but well nourished.

My best bag came one day last week when I limped up to Canary Wharf to stretch my ruined hip and decided to see if there were any bargains to be had to make the trip worthwhile. Paul’s Bakery were offering £12 worth of patisserie for £4 for immediate collection. I swiped so fast I gave myself finger whiplash (which is a thing) and hobbled off to collect my prize. It was amazing. I got a chocolate hazelnut ganache cake, some kind of custard flan with burnt sugar and flaky pastry, a pastel del nata, some kind of weird but delicious puff pastry thing, a palmier the size of my hand and a toasted sandwich. Oscar and I dined like kings. Face down in the palmier, I even managed to forget my hip hurt for a second. Proof, if proof were needed that it’s important to stay abreast of current trends, and if you can’t be bothered, get your kids to do it for you and report back.

When the children were small, the tables were turned. It was me that had exciting tales of the outside world to tell them and places to take them. Now it’s their turn and they are doing me proud. I do still have the odd trick up my sleeve though. Tallulah and Dani popped in for a surprise visit yesterday afternoon. When Oscar got back from college, they all congregated in the kitchen to raid the snack cupboard. As they were making drinks, they noticed I had a Scrub Daddy sponge in the sink. I’ve not seen them so excited in weeks. There was more excitement over my choice of cleaning products than there was that time I accidentally bought myself a James Charles’ eyeshadow palette and they thought I knew who he was.