Mandela, sausages and the changing of minds.

So apparently pork sausage falls into the vegetarian genre of food. Which meant that today son 1 deigned to eat meat. However, that didn't mean we were clear of food dramas. Oh no my friends. Today I proved that being a reasonable parent is a wholly futile exercise.

Son 1 decided that he didn't want school dinner and that he wanted packed lunch. He came to this decision after vacillating back and forth for quite some time. So I duly made packed lunch. The minute he saw the lunchbox sitting on the kitchen counter he spiralled into screaming banshee mode, yelling that he absolutely definitely didn't want packed lunch.

There is no reasoning with the child...AT ALL. So after quite a bit of this, I said fine, have school lunch and I shut the front door and started the walk up to school. Three steps in and another tantrum ensued as he noticed that we didn't have his lunchbox. Does he perhaps have the shortest memory span ever? So breathing quietly through my ears and attempting to remain calm and rational (particularly as we were now in public) I said that he had exactly 5 seconds to make up his sodding mind once and for all. Five...four...three...two...one..... "Well?" "I DON'T WANT PACKED LUNCH OR SCHOOL LUNCH. I WANT NOTHING." Done. Lunchbox stays at home, teacher deals with problem.

The rest of my day passed calmly without any tantrums, mainly because I was sitting on my own in my office, eating a packed lunch.

Fast forward to this evening. I suggest that we have Toad in the Hole for dinner. "Ooh yummy", squeaks son 2. "I don't want Toad in the Hole," wails son 1. "I HATE IT. I HATE IT. I HATE IT." Oh how I am enjoying this phase.

So I politely asked what he would like instead. "Sausages and mash" was the reply. "But I HATE mash," wailed son 2. And to be fair, he does. And so the tussle commenced. MASH! Toad in the hole! No, MASH!! No! Toad in the HOLE!!

Ready to shove both of them in the oven, I tell them to be quiet (although not quite so politely) and say that I will make Toad in the Hole with a side portion of mash. Peace at last. Some might view this as being a pushover. I like to view it as keeping the peace. I feel UN troops could do well to come to me for lessons.

Fast forward to the dinner table. Son 1 has a plate of sausage, mash, gravy and veg. Son 2 and I have toad in the hole, gravy and veg. All is peaceful. All is quiet. All is lovely...for about 2 minutes when son 2 pointed to the yorkshire pudding battery stuff and said: "What's this?" And I said: "Toad in the hole". Son 1 looked at his plate and wailed: "But I don't have any Toad in the Hole!"

So I said: "No, but I did make you your very own portion of mash just like you asked." That was apparently the wrong thing to say. I suddenly had a plate of mash and sausages flying at speed across the table at me with a small devil child across the way with his face screwed up screaming: "I DIDN'T WANT MASH. MASH IS STUPID. I WANT WHAT YOU HAVE."

Now seriously. It's time to call Supernanny right? What do you do in this situation? Maybe the child has a gaping hole in his brain that he leaks his most recent memories from. But personally, it's at times like this that I fully understand the need for corporal punishment. However, I didn't opt for violence, although was sorely tempted. I deployed a new strategy that I read about on the internet today.

It's called a Mandala (as opposed to a Mandela which would have meant having a little old man nodding sagely in our dining room and I doubt even the great man himself would be able to reason with my son. He might have helped bring about the end of apartheid but that would seem a breeze in comparison to rationalising with this child).

So a Mandala is basically a picture with patterns on it (you can print them out from the interweb). When a child heads off into a rage, you suggest that they might want to go into the next door room for some quiet time and colour in the picture. This allows them to 'reflect on how they feel'. (Alternatively this allows them to colour in your walls as they take out their rage with the full arsenal of the crayon box.) But I gave it a try. Once he had calmed himself down to decibel levels that didn't damage our ears, I explained the concept to him and suggested that he might want to go colour in to calm down.

This intrigued him and he calmed down without having to colour anything in. He just sat and ate his sausages (not the mash) and wanted to know about the pictures. He then took himself off midway through the meal to colour in. When I asked him if he could come back and eat his meal, he said: "No, I'm colouring." Fair enough. It's a new thing. But I don't think he quite got the idea that it's to calm you down, not to avoid eating your mash and broccoli.

Anyway, I am going to attempt another Mandala tomorrow (I predict it will be at roughly 7.30am when we have the first tantrum ...probably about what breakfast to have.) Wish me and my cream walls luck.

Green and pleasant land

It was William Blake (or so wikipedia informs me) who coined the phrased 'green and pleasant land' when referring to England. Let's just ponder those words for a minute shall we. 'Green'. Well yes, it is very green, particularly if you live in the countryside and certainly when you contrast it to the dry, yellowy brown plains of Africa that I grew up with. And the reason it's green is because it never stops raining. Ever. The grass could try with all it's might to wither and die in a vain attempt to turn brown. But the relentless onslaught of rain means it doesn't stand a chance. It will just grow and grow and stay shiny and green. Just ask my husband who gets to mow the stuff every weekend.

Which brings us onto 'Pleasant'. Billy Blake doesn't know just quite how accurate he was with that adjective. 'Pleasant'. It's not a bold word. It doesn't project greatness, magnificence, awe or wonder. It's not negative (mustn't complain after all) but it's not wholly positive either is it? It's just very, very English. As Bill Bryson sort of describes in his Notes from a Small Island book, only the English would describe having a dry rich tea biscuit with a cup of milky tea in a poky tea shop with driving rain bashing against the windows as 'lovely'. So describing the entire country as 'pleasant' is spot on. Blake could equally have chosen 'this grey and wet land' but he was probably an optimistic sort.

So here we are, living in this green and pleasant land. And every now and then, I wonder whether we've made the right decision in choosing this place as our home. It wasn't a decision taken lightly and to become British I've had to jump through many bureacratic hoops. Let's see, there was the initial proving that I was actually married to a Brit and getting indefinite leave to remain. Then there was the constant stream of paperwork that accompanied anything I wanted to do - from opening a bank account to buying a car - as I had to prove I wasn't some nasty foreigner who would do a runner or launder money or sell small children into slavery (recently I've thought that isn't such a bad idea).

Then there was having to redo my driver's licence - the theory and practical bits. I became the world's most annoying woman telling anyone who would listen what the travelling distance should be between two cars in the rain (very pertinent for driving in this country). And I was amazed to discover that the round white sign with a black line through it meant national speet limit. I'd always thought it meant no entry for the colour blind.

And once I'd got past that test, I had to do my Becoming British test. Instead of asking questions that might actually help a new citizen in every day life - like who you should call if you fall and sprain your ankle while looking after two little boys - they asked things like 'Where did the majority of bus drivers come from in the 1950s?' (I think the answer was the West Indies but quite frankly, should I care? I don't even catch the bus now much less in the 50s and even if I had, I doubt the driver's ethnicity would it have made a difference to my trip unless he had brought some of his homemade rum with him).

And once I'd passed that test, I got to go to a citizenship ceremony in which everyone rather embarrassingly stumbled through the national anthem and had pictures taken with a portrait of the queen. Our son crunched noisily through a packet of crisps the whole way through and instead of wearing a smart suit - like everyone else in the room - I'd turned up in jeans. Probably not the proper way to become a citizen but there you go.

And finally I was the proud owner of a pink passport that allowed me to travel anywhere in Europe without the need for long waits outside embassies in London to secure visas.

So here I am. British. Bona fide. I even have a Union Jack Emma Bridgewater mug to prove it. Yet, as I gaze outside at the drizzle, wearing a jumper and wondering whether to pack wellies for the boys today as well as raincoats, I do wonder whether perhaps we should have chosen somewhere a little sunnier to call home.

Then again, where else do you get Radio 4 and their endless discussions on the trials of pea growing in North Yorkshire, the aforementioned Rich Tea Biscuits (and custard creams), the NHS (don't complain about it until you live in a country where you either have medical aid or die), summer fetes (that are guaranteed to be rained out), Wimbledon (also guaranteed to be rained out), Pimms and lemonade, Yorkshire Pudding and very nice sausages. So really, mustn't complain.

Must head out into the green and pleasant land now with two small boys. Hopefully we won't get too wet.