Someone asked me recently, on the phone I might add - out of throttling distance - how Strawberry shortcake was doing?  The obvious answer to that is of course “my head in”...think about it!

Quite why so many people found the tale of Strawberry and her pals so endearing is beyond me.  Rather than recount the whole sorry story it might be easier for you to read the previous blogs.  Suffice to say my girl loves Strawberry and all her wee saccharine pals.  I’d had my fill of them all and wished that they be cast into that place known as the bargain bin of cartoons, all those wee toys that seemed just so necessary to existence last year and now of course were deemed way too rubbish for any self respecting wean to own.  Children go off toys, or rather the great big advertising and media machine that is capitalism persuades them they are off that toy and just need this new one..  sorry a wee bit of social commentary there!  But my girl isn’t like your typical child, she has no concept of peer group and so doesn’t change allegiance quite so easily.  Which does mean I am not plagued with requests for toys every other week (though I admit to trying to find a route through tesco that avoids the comics!).  This is good then?  Yes....hmmm, not always!

Because sometimes you really want to see the back of the favourite thing.  Of course every kid has a favourite.  But not every kid has an obsession about a favourite.   Which is why in a previous blog I admitted that I would like to string Strawberry up by the nearest tree.  And the number of you who got it!  One mum admitted to me that when her boy wasn’t looking she made Thomas the tank crash off the tracks right into the skirting board..ah the things we do to get a wee bit of pleasure.

But my girl is a loyal wee obsessor.  She still keeps her teletubbies where she can find them if she needs to go back to her safe place.  Although she has more My LIttle Ponies than she can count she has an in built ability to sense if any of them have moved (generally to the bin!).  But you live in hope she’ll move onto something else...and she did.

At this point you might be expecting to hear I had a wee jig around the room.  As you know we are rather fond of music in this house.  Life without music would be meaningless and we encourage the Dancing Queen to listen to as wide a variety of music as possible.  Yeah right!  Like the awful fascists we are we use the fact that she doesn’t have a peer group to indoctrinate her.  Our lives were so improved when we discovered headphones for her, she can now control what she hears, and on a serious note all of you out there with sons and daughters who scream their heads off in supermarkets may want to try them too, because that way they may be able to block out sensory overload.  Ah - a parent tip too, fulfilling all my social responsibilities today.  Where was I?

Music!  We love it, we need it and we have our favourites..and therein as they say, lies the problem.  Because the other half (or for the sake of clarity let’s call him thon eejit) adores a band who make me cringe.  He can’t imagine life without them, me I think that would just be tippy ding.  The band in question - The Beatles.

Now before any of you out there feel the need to tell me about their importance, their influence and how they changed your life - don’t!  I accept all those things.  I just don’t like them.  In fact to highlight this I am going to tell you about me and the eejits first date.  There we were, him a 6’ 3” quiet lad of nearly 21 who had finally asked me out having adored me at a distance for a very long time (ok I may have embellished that but it sounds good) and me 5 foot nothing of yapping, manic (but skinny, very very skinny) tazmanian devil style East End Diva.  We were doing that usual bit on a first date..what music do you like, what books, me being bolshie trying to figure out if he was politically acceptable etc.  But I am not known for subtlety so I thought it would just make sense to tell him what I didn’t like...this information included my views on politics, football and erm...the Beatles.  I suddenly realised I was talking to myself and turned round to see him standing about 10 feet behind me.  Ah..I thought this is not a good sign.  He explained about his belief that the Beatles were the greatest things since sliced bread while I was thinking in my head that it was such a shame because he was gorgeous.  As we headed up Strathclyde union I reckon we both thought, well that’s it then.  6 weeks later he proposed.  We have survived for a very long time, and that is in no small part down to the fact that we both accept the other’s right to be completely wrong about The Beatles.

And then it happened.  He decided to introduce The Dancing Queen to Yellow Submarine.  And as I have prattled on for too long..you’ll have to read the next installment to find out what happened next.