The bucket list

Say what you will about Louise Mensch and her politics, and much of the criticism of her smacks of misogyny to me (who cares about her roots being on show during Select Committee meetings?), I still think of her mostly as wildly successful chick lit author Louise Bagshawe. So I was thrilled when I tweeted last year about my summer holiday to have a response from her praising my tweet for its depiction of our holiday. 

My oldest child is still only two but we have an impressive collection of buckets, spades and other beach toys. My favourites are a castle shaped bucket with wall attached so you can build a sand fort (castles are so last millennium) bought that holiday from a beachside stall, and an amazing builders set from Great Little Trading Company which includes a brick mould and spirit level (£17).

Our sand sculptures are ephemeral of course, the first wall or brick usually being kicked down before the second has been built, but I hope the memories they create last forever. Many of my memories of childhood are of our holidays. Many others however are based on food. In fact I remember day trips by what sweets we were bought (Highland toffee on the Isle of Wight, strawberry Fruitellas by the river at Broxbourne etc). I thought of these sweetie memories when pregnant with my son as I had a near constant craving for the first five months for Tooty Fruity sweets which it turns out are remarkably hard to find in north London (though Skittles scratched the itch temporarily when necessary). Sweets and beaches, that is how I remember my second pregnancy, and my childhood.

All of which is a very long way of getting to the main point which is never mind my holidays, never mind the sweets I crave, never mind my tweets, but look look look at these amazing, memory forming, castle and sweet treat combining, sandcastle ice cream buckets available from The Handpicked Collection (£5.95). I want some.

The importance of party bags

My daughter loves parties. She loves cake and singing happy birthday and, above all, she loves party bags. Parenting forums such as Mumsnet are often full of threads bemoaning the plastic tat you get in party bags and suggesting you give kids a book or donate to charity instead. Well my daughter loves plastic tat, as did I. Give her a pot of bubbles, a balloon and a plastic dinosaur and you'll have a special place in her heart. Not that she doesn't like books or do-gooding as well, but they don't really suit the frivolity or jollity of a party.

We went to a party yesterday. She went to bed talking about her party bag and woke up asking for it. We will make a special trip to the park this afternoon just to blow the party bag bubbles and chase them. Ah, the small, yet massive, pleasures, that make up a childhood.

It's things such as these that upset me most about the 'Bedroom Tax' and benefit cuts. Well that and denying people enough money to have housing and food and clothing. Those tiny things that me and George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith probably think cost hardly anything, that we are making even harder for people on benefits to afford. A pot of bubbles. Birthday candles. A balloon. A day out to a museum with 50p to spend in the shop. An apple juice in the cafe after a run around the park. A present if you are invited to a birthday party. Just make a card you say? Sure - but how to afford the paper and crayons? A swim in the pool in the school holidays. The bus fare to go and see a friend. A magazine or comic that you have absolutely set your heart on. A piece of cake.

I don't go in for vouchers instead of money. Zoe Williams explains why perfectly in her column here. But even if you don't object to a voucher scheme, what would you do? A voucher for a candle? A voucher for a bubble?

That's the thing about this Government that strikes me even more than any other - they are not only anti-aspirational, using rhetoric about getting into work (what work?) and improving lives to actually make lives harder and dull any aspiration by removing the likelihood of achieving it, but they are actually preventing a whole generation of children from having what they and their own children take for granted, and should take for granted - the occasional thrills of an everyday party bag that to some is tat, but that is far far more precious than that.

Lovely crumbly yumminess

It's amazing how it's not just experiences, but senses, that define your childhood. The smells and sounds and tastes. I walked into the loo at the University where I work the other day and was hit by a powerful smell of bleach that took me straight back to the ladies loo in the Polytechnic my dad used to teach at, where we occasionally joined him for the day to play in his office while he saw students or did work. There must have been a higher education bulk buy in the early eighties for a particular kind of loo cleaner. Then there's the powder puff. I can't have seen one for twenty years but when I opened one in a shop the other day, unsure of what was in the box, the sweet smell of powder and the satiny feel of the puff made me feel all safe and young and, atishooo.

One of the senses that has stayed with me is the taste of a particular kind of cake they used to sell in the bakery on Orford Road in Walthamstow, which was on our walk home from primary school. It's still a bakery, though one selling sandwiches and coffee, rather than iced fingers, bath buns and split tins. For years I have thought about these cakes. I had tried describing them to people - crumbly, sweet, brushed with icing sugar, like a Viennese biscuit in cake form with solidified jam running through it - but no one could help.

Then I was flicking through a recipe book in Oxfam books the other day and found a picture that looked strikingly familiar. Turns out Viennese was a red herring because they're not Austrian at all. Rather they are called Swiss Tarts. And I made some, and they tasted just right.

(There are loads of recipes for these online - just search for Swiss Tart. They are butter heavy and sugar laden and consequently delicious.)

I took her to a supermarket

The baby and I popped to Tesco this morning for a picnic lunch and other essentials (hairbands, Easter eggs, crumpets) and, parking the car, I saw the above notice, saying "It's so much easier when you shop from home."

Now never mind that shopping online with Tesco is not easy, not if you factor in my last order having so many substitutions I sent back more than I kept and the two orders before that being cancelled on the day by the store leaving me with no food or nappies and, on one of those, no money, having taken the cash from my account despite not delivering the goods. Never mind that. Because even if the service had been at an acceptable level, it's sad if people are encouraged not to take their kids to the supermarket.

In my constant patter of chatter as we meander round the aisles, my daughter seated in the trolley, she is introduced to several basic concepts that she needs to know in life. She learns that she can't have everything she wants, that sometimes persistent nagging will get her some of what she wants, that things have a cost and budgets must be kept to, the difference between luxuries and essentials, that lists can be ignored but should always be made, and much more.

Once, when I was a a teenager, my mum played a game. Everything I asked for in the supermarket she said yes to and we came home laden with shampoos and hair mousses. It was a bit overwhelming, getting everything I asked for, but a wonderful memory. I may do the same to my daughter one day, a one off special treat. But how would it be a special treat if she hasn't first had years of having to keep more or less to a list, browse shelves for bargains, evaluate quality and not have every single thing that catches her eye as we go up and down the aisles?