I have 2 brothers and on Wednesday I forgot to call one for his birthday. Bad Bad sister. Happy Birthday Matt – Hope it was a good one – it being your first as a Daddy!

The second one, James, I have a bone to pick with. He does this magic trick for the kids where he gets a pencil and makes it disappear up his nose/ear etc. The kids are spellbound by it, especially Holly. Yeterday at the breakfast table Holly is playing with her ‘Ello” toys (you build little characters by sticking bits on sticks) and says

“I can do the magic trick like James”

and proceeds to push the little stick into her ear. A big Yelp later and she is bellowing about a sore ear. I grabbed my ear light (thank goodness I have one of those) and there was blood in her ear canal. I made an appointment with the GP and she said that it hadn’t perforated the eardrum, but made a scratch on it with had clotted and was going to probably be OK.

Now James – if I ever see you do that again you’ll be on the way to a smacked bottom!