Just another parenting blog.
The car seat manual was as thick as a novella and entirely in pictograms. I needed a volunteer to test the harness.
Swinging the car seat wildly around the living room risked the television and fish tank, but Brutus Bear remained firmly in his harness. He came back down to Earth safely and is currently recovering from his experience alongside his new friend, Alfie’s as-yet unnamed teddy.
Picking on the NHS at a precarious time like this seems particularly unfair. This is especially true because we have found the staff in the GRH Women’s Centre to be excellent, and the facilities mostly so.
Nonetheless, there is one specific aspect of the NHS’s service that we need to highlight: the catering. Frequently ridiculed, it seems that there is no smoke without fire.
At its best, the food was pleasantly reminiscent of school dinners (i.e. lukewarm and sloppy, but with the occasional burst of flavour that reminds you of halcyon lunchtimes in a noisy, packed room that smelled of cabbage and sweaty plimsolls). At its worst, it was congealed and inedible.
But what really tickled us were the menu choices. Here’s an example of a nutritious hospital lunch. Remember that these are being served to people who are generally sick, and who therefore need a rounded diet.
In case it’s not clear, this is a potato, on a plate, on a tray that also contains a small pot of melted ice cream.
The reason that there’s no side dish with this meal is that the only side dish option available on this day was mashed potato. A naked baked potato … with a side of mashed potato.