Sunday 21 December 2014

Happy Christmas!

This year Betty has spent all her spare time cradling Pecky, and declared that chicken could never again be eaten in the house; Elsie had her leg broken by an irate cockerel; Tom was traumatised to discover a drowned hen floating in its outsized water bowl; and Dolly was pecked on the hand, and so ate a chicken nugget in protest.



With thanks to Postsnap for producing our personalised card.  The app is clear and simple to use and there are many different styles and designs to choose from for every occasion.

Happy Christmas everyone! xxxx

Tuesday 14 October 2014

The unflappable chicken

An extract from Pecky's portfolio (note the loomband)
Life in the Button household very much revolves around chickens, either because Betty is giving Pecky a cuddle, or Tom is trying to balance Ethel on a rake, or because they are breaking my leg etc.  For the last week or so, however, things have moved to a whole new level. Tom came back from school the other day mumbling something about having to take a chicken into school for a calendar shoot.

I asked him what he was talking about, but he was a bit vague.  'Cathy [fellow school parent] said something about needing a prop for a photoshoot. She asked if Pecky might be available.'

After asking around, I discovered that Cathy's photographer partner was putting together a calendar with themed monthly photos as a fundraiser for the school. April involves a live chicken, for reasons Tom wasn't able to pass on.

'Apparently there's ninjas as well. but I don't know what month they're for,' said Tom. 'How does Cathy know about Pecky anyway?'

I told him that there were about three hundred photos of Betty and Pecky on Facebook, as he would know, if he ever felt like lifting his self-imposed ban on all forms of social media,

I thought no more about Pecky and the photoshoot - consigning it to that black hole part of my brain involving anything chicken related - until we got a call from my friend Sandra.

Apparently Cathy and Sandra had had a chat that morning, and conversation had inevitably turned to Pecky.  Sandra was phoning us to find out from Tom what time Pecky might be available to come into school on Monday.

Sandra had become involved in the discussion due to the fact that her son Owen had been selected to hold Pecky for the photoshoot.  Owen enjoys holding Pecky almost as much as Betty does. He once held our massive leg-breaking cockerel upside down by the feet, which is pretty impressive for a seven year old. Tom has been going on about it for months.

On the day of the photoshoot, and I was woken up by a message from Sandra: 'It's Pecky's big day - hope she's ready!'  Poor Betty had a bug, but with her head stuck in a sick bucket, gave careful instructions to Tom on how Pecky should be transported to the school and treated during the shoot.  'Only Owen is allowed to hold my Pecky,' she reminded Tom. It was not a relaxing start to the day.

After half an hour of increasingly desperate hunting, Tom found a soggy collapsed crisp box for transporting the chicken. I helped him tape it together (while Betty told me that she wanted to be featured in April, and didn't want to dress as Guy Fawkes for November) and off Tom went to the chicken house, while Dolly waited in the car with an inscrutable expression on her face.

Just then I got an urgent text from Cathy telling me the photoshoot had been postponed due to the bad weather. I yelled to Tom down the driveway: 'NO PECKY', and apparently he got back in the car to a barrage of questions from Dolly about why the chicken was supposed to be coming to school anyway, why her chicken Ethel wasn't involved, and whether Pecky would be coming home on the school bus.  But despite the family flapping all around her, Pecky has remained unflustered throughout this whole episode.  We all have a lot to learn from that chicken.  

Wednesday 1 October 2014

Quiet kitchen

Coleslaw was quite a big part of my upbringing. Admittedly though, it wasn’t until I became a little more mature, that I began to really appreciate the raw shredded cabbage and onion combo that my mum had been producing throughout my childhood.

In fact, I remember many occasions where I would reject much of her laboured over home-cooking, and instead demand a frozen pizza and a tin of processed peas.

Children can be a bit blind to culinary efforts, and I now know only too well what a thankless task it is cooking for them. There are few things more annoying than putting your heart and soul into a meal only to have your children announce they don’t like it before they’ve even reached the kitchen.

Although I loved my mum’s pizzas, and her fry-ups, and her roasts (her ‘white gravy’ was famous), I didn’t fully appreciate at the time what an inventive, and superb cook she was. I reckon these days, I would even relish her lentil stew and dumplings, which, as a child I used to cram unchewed into my mouth and then spit into the toilet.

Among many other things, like gardening, painting, housework, walking unaided, and shopping, my mum really misses cooking. She now completely relies on others for her every meal - and there are a lot of kind people around - but I’m sure nothing beats being able to do her own cooking.

Having eaten some shop-bought coleslaw recently, my mum remembered the coleslaw that she used to make. So I offered to make her some. And having never made it before, I thought how hard can it be?

Very hard, it turns out! I have just delivered my third attempt and I’m waiting anxiously for the verdict. She takes it all with good grace and humour, but I know that my inability to be inventive with nuts and courgettes, frustrates the hell out of her.
 
My own children will never experience the joy of being cooked for by my mum, their granny – to sit at her table in her steamy lively happy kitchen and be served up a ‘random seafood pasta thing with egg, mozzarella and tomatoes in a glass bowl’ that my husband remembers with great fondness.

They do, however, get to sit on her lap and cuddle her, and talk to her, and make her laugh, and bring her immense joy, and for that I am very grateful.

Tuesday 29 July 2014

Ascot, the giant fancy dress party

The night before we were due to go to Ascot, I completely panicked, and decided that the lack of a suitable hat, and the girls' footwear situation (a choice of flipflops, school shoes or grubby crocs) meant we couldn't possibly go. The clincher was the fact that Tom had recently given his few remaining ties to a charity shop.

But after pathetically telling a friend we weren't going, she told me: 'Never ever ever let wardrobe considerations stand in the way of experiences. I'M SERIOUS.'

So with flowers in our hair, the girls' best flip flops, and a tie borrowed from our farmer neighbour, we set out for Ascot at the crack of dawn. Tom moaned about having to wear a tie, and argued that he hadn't even worn one at our wedding. I reminded him of the upset that that had caused, and told him he was bloody well wearing one today.

It was quite a long walk to the ticket office from the car park, and by the time we got there my shoes - last worn at my wedding - had left my feet black and blue. 

When collecting the tickets there were people on hand dressed in full finery, with top hats and everything, and I started to panic again. But then I noticed there were also ladies not wearing hats (or even flowers), and I even spotted a few in casual summer sandals. So before we were even inside the gates I had swapped my shoes for my trusty Birkenstocks. And I whipped the flower out of my hair and plonked my Asda sunglasses on my head instead.

What I hadn't realised is that there is a smarter dress code in the boxes, and the more champagne I had, the more I felt the need to explain in great detail to beautifully dressed ladies wearing incredible hats and shoes, why I was wearing Birkenstocks. 

Quick to change the subject, the lovely marketing lady asked me if I liked horses. 'No, I hate them. But I love champagne,' I told her. Dolly, my ever diplomatic five year old, felt the need to explain to her that it wasn't just horses that I don't like, but all animals. And in fact it was because of my hate of animals (a cockerel attack, resulting in a broken leg) that I had had to wear Birkenstocks in the first place. 

After a delicious lunch, and more champagne, and meeting really friendly guests and their children sharing the same box as us, we were taken down to meet Ant and Dec, who are Patrons of Ascot’s Colts and Fillies Club for under sixteens, for a questions and answers session. Betty had decided that she was going to ask Ant if he likes ants, and Dolly was going to ask them what their best horse joke was. Some poor bloke wandered past in a large furry horse costume, while next to him a minder hissed ‘Just keep waving,’ and I thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t required to dress as a horse on this hot day.

I took several pictures of the girls with Ant and Dec, and (insensitively) told them that my girls had no idea who they were, but that I really admired their work. They were such warm funny people and I would have loved to have stolen them for an hour to two to see what they could do. My girls were pretty taken with them too. 

I promptly put the photo I had taken on Facebook, causally mentioning that I was hanging with Ant and Dec at Ascot. I think it caused a lot of confusion with my friends back in Herefordshire.

Meeting Ant and Dec was a tough act to follow, and the girls seemed less than enthused about meeting Peppa Pig and George, characters who Dolly still absolutely adores, as do the rest of us.

I was very excited, and bellowed a little too aggressively 'GO ON, CUDDLE GEORGE SO THAT I CAN TAKE A PICTURE' while thrusting Dolly through the crowd of mini fans. Dolly gave George (also extremely hot in a giant padded outfit) such a massive embrace he almost toppled over, and his bodyguard looked a bit worried.

There were so many things to do, including different fair rides like the big wheel and merry-go-rounds, and various activities including pompom making and feeding meerkats. And everything was free, which is virtually unheard of these days. We had been at a water theme park in Spain just a few days before and were fuming, that after paying a hefty entrance fee, we were charged 5 Euros just to sit on some grass. 

Despite loads of wonderful things to do and see, I was a bit irritated that here we were at Ascot and all my children wanted to do was hang out in the loom band making tent - having spent the last two months hiding under their duvets at night making endless loombands. ‘Please come and say hello to Ben and Holly with me,’ I begged them at one point, pointing to a very jolly-looking pair in their massive costumes. 

A highlight for me was meeting a jockey dressed in full silks, watching him get weighed, and then watching him in several races. I got a photo of him with my children (while he stood on the scales, with a complex expression on his face) and then more pictures of him racing. I felt I knew him pretty well by the end. 

I have never been to the races before and if we hadn't been invited by Ascot to come along to their King George Family Day, I would not have dreamt of going. But we had such a truly wonderful day, and although there were many exciting things going on, the best part for me was actually watching the races. 

And both girls are now seriously into Ant and Dec and are following their career very closely and watching back episodes of I'm a Celebrity and Byker Grove. 

Thank you Ascot for a fabulous day – and I no longer ‘hate’ horses, I bloody love them!

Thursday 1 May 2014

Popular names = a quiet life

Sulking
I once had a run-in with a fellow mum at a play group when my eldest daughter was a baby. She was horrified that I had named my child Betty.

She asked me if I had considered the bullying that Betty would endure at school because of her 'unusual' name, and had I prepared myself for her hating me for it. 

And she genuinely felt sorry for Betty that she would never find those cheap plastic mugs, and pens, and door plaques, and toothbrushes, with her name emblazoned across them. 

I quietly seethed at her rudeness, and scoffed at the idea of a common, sorry, popular name and marched out of that playgroup and never ever returned. 

Seven years later I am happy to report that Betty hasn't endured any bullying about her name, and has only mentioned a handful of times that she wants to be called Emily instead. And I don't think she has started hating me yet. 

But... in recent weeks, Betty has become obsessed with trying to find one of those garish plastic mugs with her name on it. And despite me telling her that this is a pointless exercise, it hasn't stopped her dragging Tom from one tacky greeting cards shop to the next. 

And while we were away in Pembrokeshire last week she sulked for three days because her name could not be found on any merchandise anywhere. 

As I sat there on a beautiful beach near St David's, gazing out to sea, the wind in my hair, Betty persistently moaned in my left ear about personalised pens with gold lettering.  It made me think of that mum at the playgroup all those years ago, and I decided that perhaps she had a point.  Chantelle would have been a much easier option, if only to be able to enjoy my holiday in peace...

Tuesday 18 March 2014

My hate of animals has made me a vegetarian

I have never been a big meat-eater, particularly meats that resemble the actual animal, like joints with bones.  A thick slice of bloody beef amongst my roast potatoes and carrots literally turns my stomach.  I would find it just as appetising to walk up to a mooing muddy cow standing on the hillside and bite a chunk out of its side.

My dislike of eating animals isn't because I have any deep affection for them. It’s actually the opposite. I would rather eat food that hasn't scratched or bitten me, or chased me, or barked loudly at me, or broken my leg.  Vegetables are much safer by comparison.

And in the wake of the whole cockerel killer-attack incident, I have now gone from avoiding animals to positively disliking them, particularly poultry - I do not want them anywhere near me (certainly not inside me), dead or alive.

This leaves a bit of a problem, because although we promptly got rid of vicious 'Cocky' (affectionately renamed by Betty when she realised 'Buttercup', her cute fluffy yellow chick, turned out to be a he) we still have four hens left, all of which the other Buttons totally adore.  In my rational head I know that they won't attack me, but they still terrify me, so much so that I tried to take one of them on with my crutch the other day when she pecked at some grass a little too close to where I was standing frozen to the spot.

I later announced that I wanted to move back to London, and my mum told me: 'Your poor children, not having a hardy countryside-loving woman for a mother.'

In light of my chicken aversion, I did wonder whether Pinterest were having a cruel laugh at my expense recently when they sent me an email entitled: 'Mouth-watering chicken recipes'.  UK pinners might be 'cluckers for chicken recipes' but this one ain't.  I am actually thrilled that I now genuinely dislike the taste of chicken - it feels like sweet revenge.

Interestingly, the leg breakage incident has also forced Betty into announcing that she too is now a vegetarian.  But for her it's on the grounds that she feels 'so so sorry for cute lovely animals who are killed and then eaten.'

She blatantly doesn't believe that her cockerel is now living happily on a farm somewhere, and she still eyes me suspiciously while saying 'I would be heartbroken if I ever found out that Cocky was dead.'

A small part of me feels bad that I got the next door neighbour to kill and eat Betty's pet, particularly when she makes me listen to tortured love songs she has written for him.  But then I remember that I am still hobbling around on crutches, I can't drive, it takes me three hours to make lunch, my house is a mess, and I have put on about three stone... and all because of him.

So Betty and I will continue to reject meat for our opposing reasons, but one thing we do agree on is that our vegetarianism sort of excludes pigs, because as Betty pointed out 'they just taste too nice.'

Tuesday 11 March 2014

A slow but happy existence

It's been five weeks since Betty's beloved pet chicken tried to kill me. Which means I am now half way to possibly being able to ditch the crutches, drive the car, and resume some sort of normality.

But actually, the last few weeks, though very unpleasant and frustrating at times, have been far better than I could have ever imagined. 

I have had copious amounts of tea made for me by my lovely visitors, while we sit in my kitchen, eat cake, and I regale them with stories of my vicious fight with the cockerel, and my marriage proposal to the paramedic (who gave me lots of gas and air and morphine), and the fact I now have a metal rod in my leg and feel like a bit of a hero.

I have been brought homemade cookies, curries, Chocolate Oranges, wine, scones (with jam and cream) olives, ginger cake, laxatives, flowers, biscuits, magazines, Revels, pies, homeopathy remedies, soup, Fruit Pastilles, and lasagnes. 

And the kindness has even extended to friends cleaning my house from top to bottom, while I lay on my bed eating chocolate and watching a rom com on Netflix, being whisked away to Pizza Express, and to the pub.

Having a broken leg also forces you into a very slow existence, which I'm beginning to think is really rather nice. When else would you get away with taking a blissful hour to have a shower and brush your teeth? 

So although I cannot wait to be able to leave the house at will, and walk down the stairs without fear of breaking my neck, it has most certainly not been all bad...

Wednesday 19 February 2014

All About Me

One of my fave bloggers Nappy Valley Girl has tagged me to answer some questions about myself.

Here goes:

1.  What's for dinner tonight?

Sausage stew, a la Tom Button (currently the one doing everything around here due to my broken leg).

2.  Do you read a daily newspaper?

No, not unless you count Buzzfeed.

3.  If you could take off on a no-expense spared holiday next week, where would you go?

Pretty much anywhere you don't have to wear wellies, and change out of muddy clothes every five seconds, and run away from angry chickens.

4.  What was your favourite book as a child?

The Bears' Picnic, by Jan and Stan Berenstain.

5.   who is your favourite author as an adult?

David Nicholls, because he wrote the fabulous One Day, and introduced me to the gorgeous Dexter Mayhew.

6.  Do you buy your underwear at M&S?

Yes - I have a mad splurge in M&S every five years or so.

7.  What's your dream career and do you wish you'd done it?

When a careers advisor came to our school and got us to take a questionnaire to determine our ideal career, mine came up as train driver!   However I was adamant I wanted to be a news reader on BBC1 - mainly because my drama teacher told me I had a good speaking voice, and this coupled with the fact that I wanted to be famous, seemed like the obvious choice.

8.  Do you ever google people you meet afterwards? (And not for work reasons).

Yes! I sometimes even start googling them on my phone while still in their company.  I was in hospital last week and out of sheer boredom I googled all the other patients on my ward (as their names were written above their heads), and also some of the doctors and nurses.

9.  What was the last thing you saw at the theatre?

Rapunzel, and before that Ben and Holly, and before that Jack and the Beanstalk... (jeez)

10. Do you use Pinterest, and if so, do you get the point?

I use Pinterest very occasionally, like when my kids set me impossible challenges such as making a multi-coloured, three tier, flashing Disney Princess birthday cake - for this purpose it is very useful to get ideas.  Other than that I haven't got a clue what it's for.

11. What's been your proudest moment as a parent so far?

I'm pretty proud of my girls right now - they are waiting on me hand and foot.


I am now going to think of some questions of my own and tag some bloggers...

Tuesday 18 February 2014

My husband is Superman

Tom is pretty much having to do everything at the moment. It is very frustrating for me and totally knackering for him.

These are things I have said to him in the last 24 hours:
  • Have you checked the mouse traps?
  • Are you keeping the surfaces clean?
  • Please can I have a bowl of Weetabix?
  • It's so important to stay on top of the washing.
  • Have I got any clean pyjamas?
  • Can you switch the telly on for me please?
  • Shall we write a shopping list together?
  • Can you carry me up the stairs?
  • Do you think I've lost weight?
  • Have the girls brushed their teeth?
  • When did they last have a bath?
  • This is delicious.
  • Are you sure it's cooked properly?
  • Can you get me a clean towel?
  • Do you think it's ok to drink gin with morphine?
  • Shall I teach you how to use the steam mop?
  • Please can I have a cup of tea?
  • Can you move that pile of dirty laundry out of my path?
  • What's that smell?
  • Would you mind shaving my legs?
  • Tidy as you go - that's my motto
  • Don't forget to pick up my prescription from the surgery 
  • Have you checked the post?
  • Can you buy me some Arnica?
  • Thanks so much for hoovering
  • Are you ok?
  • Can you wrap my leg in clingfilm?
He is being absolutely amazing, and hasn't once complained.  What a guy!

Sunday 16 February 2014

Using crutches: it's not all bad

I am trying to get the hang of my crutches, but it's not coming that naturally. I clumsily topple this way and that, I accidentally forget to keep my broken leg off the ground and wince in pain, and my hands hurt.

But there are some definite advantages to being on crutches:
  • You can use them rather effectively to bat away objects left in your path, such as Lego and doll's houses.
  • Your children stop nagging you for food every five seconds, because they know you're currently pretty useless - you can barely go to the toilet on your own, let alone make them endless snacks.
  • In fact the children very quickly learn that for anything to happen around here they have to become your slave, and fetch you everything from clean socks, to chocolate, to your next morphine fix.
  • And they even bring you croissants in bed, occasionally.
  • Crutches also provide hours of entertainment for the kids who love playing with them. When I was little I always dreamed of breaking a leg so that I could have my own crutches.
  • You can make the handles look pretty with a huge array of different coloured comfy covers to choose from on eBay. 
  • You build up serious arm muscle and those bingo wings finally become a thing of the past.  No more having to half-heartedly weight-lift baked bean tins once a fortnight.
If only I'd had them on me when the cockerel decided to attack - bastard wouldn't have stood a chance.

Friday 7 February 2014

Hospitalised by our pet cockerel

As I walked down our lane to meet my girls from the school bus the other day I was severely attacked by our cockerel. 

This is the cockerel who was lovingly hatched in the girls' playhouse last Summer, and started life as a gorgeous fluffy yellow chick who we all adored, and who has featured many times on my Instagram feed.

The attack was so crazed and vicious, I think the bird was intent on actually trying to kill me. He attacked me the entire length of our lane, while I flailed and kicked and screamed blue murder, desperately trying to protect myself.

In the struggle, I eventually slipped on some mud and fell back onto my left leg and hit the ground.  When I frantically tried to get up I realised the bottom half of my leg was swinging around, completely broken and disconnected from the top half of my leg and the cockerel was now angrily circling me as I lay helpless on the ground. 

At that very moment both my husband and my neighbour appeared on the scene, having heard my screams.  And the cockerel calmly clucked off as if nothing had happened, happily pecking at some snowdrops as he went, leaving me sitting in mud and chicken shit, in a mangled, traumatised, and excruciatingly painful mess. 

At that point the school bus arrived, Betty took in the somewhat tense scene and went over to the cockerel to make sure it was OK.

Next the ambulance arrived and the paramedics gave me reassurances, and held my hand, and cut my clothes and shoes off me. The very funny paramedic kindly pointed out that the shoes were cheap so it didn't really matter. 

I got through an entire cylinder of gas and air before they'd even got me into the ambulance. I went from wanting to be shot in the head to stop the pain, to cracking jokes about poultry and roast dinners. 

As we pulled away in the ambulance the cockerel saw us off with several chirpy cock-a-doodle-doos, and I sobbed and laughed and swore and then passed out. There was a lot of emotion in that ambulance as we whizzed through the Herefordshire countryside.

The only thing I remember when I arrived at the hospital is one of the porters making a joke about KFC, which made me laugh, and then cry. 

The next day I had a lengthy operation to straighten the leg and had metal pins inserted through my bones because it was so mashed up. 

I later asked the farmer who lives next door to us to put the cockerel through a very slow and painful death. He just texted to tell me that the deed has been done and that he tasted delicious. 

I am still in hospital and writing this post on my phone.  I'm learning how to use crutches, drinking lots of tea, and making the most of the morphine, but am missing my children terribly. 

I just hope they don't give me a hard time about ordering the execution of their beloved pet chicken...

Tuesday 4 February 2014

When two dads try to organise a play date

Below is an email conversation between Tom and another dad at school:

Other dad: Would Dolly like to come over to play with Jacob after school on Wednesday?

Tom: Dolly would love to, thank you. What time?

Other dad: Great. We will collect her from school and feed her. Can you collect her at 5.45pm? Is there anything she doesn't eat?

Tom: Sounds perfect, thank you! In theory Dolly will eat anything, in practice she eats sausages.

Other dad: Sausages it is then.

24 hours later...

Other dad: Does she eat anything with sausages? Potatoes, carrots, peas, sweet corn etc?

Tom: Dolly should eat pretty much anything that is put in front of her.

Other dad: Ok

Tom: As long as it's sausages...

Other dad: Should I just give her a plate of sausages then?

Tom: No just kidding! Give her anything. Please don't go to any trouble though - there is a danger she might not eat it and then I would feel awful...

Other dad: What sort of sausages does she like?

And so it continues...

Thursday 30 January 2014

Herefordshire life... and dreaming of those summer days

I have been in bed with flu for the last few days, so what better way to spend my time than hankering after summer days and being a pest on Instagram...

Betty and Dolly enjoying Herefordshire life

Friday 10 January 2014

Back down to school with a bump

During the holidays any kind of sensible routine went completely out of the window. In fact, the girls bouncing off their bedroom walls and squealing in a Christmas-induced tinsel frenzy til ten o'clock every night seemed a small price to pay for all the blissful lie-ins we were getting.

However, when it was time to go back to school, they understandably found it hard to settle back into the routine of lights out and sleep at 7.30pm. But when they came home after their first day back and said that they had both been told by teachers that they looked shattered, I decided I needed to take action and forego the lie-ins. Heaven forbid the school thinking that we are awful neglectful parents for having knackered, dopey children, who stay up all night watching Disney films and eating crap.

So on Tuesday night, at 6pm, I hid the clocks and marched them upstairs telling them it was already practically the middle of the night. 'But we've only just had supper,' they protested. They were tucked up by 6.30pm and as I left the room I told them that if they went straight to sleep without getting out of bed or exchanging insults, they would get a treat in their lunch box the following morning.

My chocoholic, sugar-addict daughter Betty took this bribe very seriously indeed, and after about two minutes of her gently but intensively persuading Dolly that she must do as I said, they both pretty much went straight to sleep.

And not only did they sleep all night, but the following morning Betty appeared at my bedside at 7am, fully dressed, bright eyed and bushy tailed and asking: 'So, can I have two treats for being so good?'

Dolly was a bit cross that Betty had got dressed so efficiently. In response, Dolly decided to take 20 minutes to get one leg into her tights and then have a meltdown.

The following night, not long after I had given them the same treat-in-lunchbox bribe and left the room, Dolly called down to me and, proud as can be, she told me that she was already dressed in her uniform and ready for school.

I had already settled on the sofa with a glass of wine and Alan Partridge on Netflix, and so decided that it probably wouldn't do her any harm to sleep in her school uniform all night, and it would in fact save me a battle in the morning. So I let it go, and carried on with Alan.

This morning though, Betty was beside herself with annoyance that Dolly had got dressed before her - a whole 12 hours before her in fact. Who would have thought that a miniature imitation Milky Way could hold this much weight? And who knows where it will end?
 
In the meantime, my children may now be awake in class but I wonder what the school would have to say about them sleeping in their uniform and eating chocolate from Aldi for lunch every single day?