A satisfactory day

I'm working today, and Ermintrude is in charge. She does pretty well, considering.

First she takes Squirrel off to the £1 shop to buy a pair of butterfly flip-flops. This is quite useful because Tiger has taken a pair of scissors to two pairs of flip flops now; Squirrel has tried to mend them with sticky tape but it didn't work, so she probably needed a new pair that will fall apart without assistance from Tiger.

Next, Ermintrude takes Shark down to Tesco to buy double cream and a vanilla pod to make some extraordinary pudding with lots of chocolate in it. That sits in the fridge in the office while mummy Grit gets told off for licking out the inside of the bowls that have contained delicious Green and Black's melted chocolate and Shark's home-made vanilla cream.

If this wasn't triumph enough, Ermintrude then takes Tiger over the road to thrash about with a tennis racquet for 20 minutes.

This is indeed a triumph. I have to have a drink before I embark on this. Tiger keeps up a litany about how she is rubbish at everything and how no-one loves her because she is horrible and how she wishes she did not have sisters and how everyone hates her anyway.

After a couple of hours of this tedious recital of human failure and misery from the perspective of a 7-year old, my mind has usually numbed out and I'm inclined to start agreeing. When I come round I start scanning the internet for child psychologists. But Ermintrude has the advantage here because she only understands one in every 20 words that Tiger speaks, so it all washes over her, leaving her unaffected. She probably spends her mental energies much more productively, like wondering what Francois is up to.

So thanks to Tiger being taken off, Squirrel being made happy and Shark giving Gordon Ramsay another run for his money, Grit ends the day in quite a satisfactory humour.

And Shark's chocolate and vanilla pudding was extra delicious. Even better, Squirrel filled up on pasta, so I had to polish hers off too.

Well done, Ermintrude!