The Wotsit

After Dad spent most of this week destroying our house, yesterday he suddenly decided to start fixing it, so me and Mum got out of the way in case we were asked to do anything to help. 
She took me to our neighbours barbecue, where it smelled a lot less like very old cat.


I've never been to a barbecue before, but if this one was anything to go by, they're not for me.
Barbecues are these things where loads of people you don't know go and stand in someone's garden and eat food I can't have off paper plates I'm not allowed to touch. Throw in the fact Mum made me wear a summer dress, even though it was pouring with rain, and you can see why they're be no need to hold me back next year. Not exactly my idea of a big Saturday night. 


Then, swathes of these plentiful strangers TAKE YOU FROM YOUR MUM and expect you to SIT ON THEIR KNEE AND SMILE while they scoff their way through another heavenly smelling burger, which, oh yeah - I CAN'T HAVE. Unbelievable. 

• Firstly - I don't know you and I don't see a bottle of milk secreted about your person - so don't expect me to smile.
• Secondly - Get that burger out of my face. The fact I have no teeth is not the green light for you to subject me to an evening of taste bud tempting torment. 
• Thirdly - I will most certainly not abandon my mother to sit on the knee of a stranger, who, while all to happily chomping down on a hotdog could, understandably, take quite a shine to my staggering cuteness and try to stick me on a barmcake as well.
• Finally - Don't ever, ever, EVER take me off my Mum without my express permission*. After the last two weeks, where the woman has disappeared for DAYS AT A TIME, I refuse to let her out of my sight. She might run off and "go to work" again. *Unless you have food/a bottle/a dummy - in which case - snatch me away at your leisure.

In amongst the pouring rain, the boring conversation and all these strangers clambering for my attention, there was one little ray of hope. One tiny beacon of joy. One flickering twinkle of fun which shone out from among these weird looking, wine quaffing strangers. Gill From Number One.



Mum told me a while ago that Gill From Number One had knitted me some cardigans when I was born. They were alright - warm, colourful, comfortable. The girl done good. But at the end of the day, they're cardigans. How excited about them am I actually supposed to get? 
But last night. Last night Gill From Number One became A Legend.
Because Gill From Number One...GAVE ME A WOTSIT.


That's right. I HAD A WOTSIT. A cheesy, preservative saturated, artificially coloured, synthetically flavoured, bright orange Wotsit. 
I could sense my Mum's uneasy, rising panic as her dread of all things E-numbered came clattering audibly to the forefront of her brain. But I pretended not to hear. After enduring the grasp of so many strangers, so many burger whiffs and so much rain, this was MY CHANCE. So without a thought for her nine months of good intentions; without so much as a backwards glance at my broken shell of a mother; I seized upon her weedy over politeness and snatched hold of the toxic maize based snack.
And I ate it. All.

Me and the contraband

After one, Mum managed to steam in and make up some half hearted excuses about orange stuff staining my clothes and me having my tea shortly. But it was too late. I'D EATEN A WOTSIT.
She knew it. I knew it.


Mum invented our exit shortly after, took me home and went on and on about the crisp till about 1am. I heard her as I perpetually ascended the bars of my cot in an E number driven frenzy. Turns out you really do get a whoosh with a Wotsit.


So I don't mind barbecues. 
And I love Gill From Number One.