Back-yard Camping

My frangipani...it's actually a far richer, deeper red than this, a deep blood red, so I've got to master photoshop or some such program now. Who knew blogging could be such hard work? My husband buys me a cheap digital camera and I start posting photos, now I want to make them good photos, whatever next. Probably a picture where #4 looks angelic....beyond my skills.

Number three and four wanted to camp in the garden last night. Against all my instincts ( silently screaming, NO NO NO NOT EVER EVER NO NO), I agreed.

I told Homer he had to sit up all night by the back door in case he was needed.

Anyway off go #3 and #4 to the tent, complete with sleeping bags, torches, pillows, spare shoes,(a kitchen sink) and yes, I did say spare shoes. My whole family is dysfunctional, including the cat. I blame my sister for the need for two pairs of shoes on a camping trip across the garden that will last at the most eight hours. Before leaving them for the night I did a quick check that there were no lighters, candles or home made rocket launchers in the tent.

Number three fell into a deep and cherubic sleep until the early hours when he came in all warm and toasty and got in his own bed just to finish off the night. Number four lasted about one hour. I asked Homer, " How come #3, who is known as a bit of a wuss, can sleep all night in a tent, but #4, who is the complete rufty-tufty lasts all of an hour?"

" That's easy, number three knows the worst that is out there, it's number four. He's seen his fear and faced it. Number four can only imagine."

Dear DCS: I still maintain that you couldn't decide between your pictures and your jewellery in a house fire as you'd be far to busy deciding which shoes were most appropriate to wear whilst being rescued by a fireman.

Why does everybody like olives?

Not an incredibly important question I know but it bugs me. I live in an area with a huge Greek/ Italian population. In the local supermarket they don't have a salad bar, but they do have an olive bar with, I kid you not, twenty different varieties of olives of different colours, stuffings, etc etc. The oil section of the supermarket has at least three bays of different olive oils.

I hate olives. I can taste even the smallest amount of anything olive-like in my food, even if olive oil was used to fry something.

In this I am unique, it seems, in the world. I watch Jamie Oliver prepare a meal and think, " That looks nice, I might try that," and then he pours olive oil on it, and I shudder. (I do have a theory that if his Olive oil was taken off him he would run around in circles, unable to cook, gibbering until he just collapsed in an exhausted heap of anxiety, he puts it on everything. My challenge to you, Jamie...cook a meal without even touching the bottle of olive oil, ah ah, not even as a dressing afterwards.)

I have decided that my hatred of olives in genetic. I think there is possibly not one single molecule of Mediterranean DNA in my being. I am Celtic through and through and olives, as we all know, are not known for growing well in Scotland or Cornwall.

Why does everybody love olive oil? Or is it just one of those taboos that no-one has told me about, a sort of political correctness, and you're just not allowed to admit that you can't stand them.