There's no such thing as a free lunch

Recently the lovely people at vouchercodes.co.uk contacted me and asked if I would like to participate in a new project of theirs called The Most Wanted Fuss Free Dining Report.  The idea is to get to the bottom of which nationwide restaurants really are the most child-friendly, welcoming and serve up the best value-for-money fare.  Now I must admit that I don’t normally look forward to taking my feral brood out to eat, add to that it was now the end of a long hair-tearing half term and I was about to turn their kind offer down.  Then I spotted the words “and it’s on us” and I was sold.

After a quick conflab with the family, it was decided that we would visit Prezzo in South Woodford during Saturday lunchtime.  Prezzo sets its stall out as an Italian Restaurant chain and I had eaten there before, albeit without the kids, and had enjoyed the experience.  Now to find out how it would cope with the Harding’s en masse.

We arrived at 1.40pm and had missed most of the lunchtime rush, so we were ushered straight to a table that was within view of the chef who was making pizzas in a wood fire oven.  I have to say the ‘front of house’ welcome wasn’t exactly the warmest I’ve received, as my Dad always says “A smile doesn’t cost a penny”.  I considered passing this snippet onto our waitress, but her icy stare stopped me short.

I hate to use the word ‘posher’ but as I can’t think of a suitable alternative it will have to do.  Prezzo is a bit posher than  the Pizzas Huts, Harvesters or any of the chains with a play area, which is why we don’t normally bring the kids here, they tend do need to run about between courses.  Luckily for us (and the other diners) the kids had realised that they were in somewhere a bit nicer than Kathy’s Café and were behaving appropriately.

The waitress brought over the obligatory ‘kids menus that doubles as a puzzle/drawing mat’, but neglected to bring pencils as they had run out.  Kaede started to express her outrage at such service and the waitress quickly found two pencils that had fallen behind the till, a lucky escape.  Plus they had a good mixture of puzzles and drawing on them, so they would be a welcome distraction.  I promised my 17 year old daughter Storm that I wouldn’t mention that she got stuck on the crossword, so that never happened OK?

Our waitress then went through her super speedy spiel and took our drinks orders.  To my horror Kaede asked for a beer only for Nate to tell her they were only allowed Daddy’s beer at home.  I ignored my Wife’s stare of shame and buried my head in the menu.  Luckily for me they have a good wine list, so I ordered a bucket of wine for the Mrs and a super-sized Peroni for myself.

The kids starters arrived quite quickly, pizza dough garlic bread, and I used the rare moment of silence to take in the ambience of the place and enjoy my beer.  With starters finished and a change of waitress, we were asked if we were now ready for our mains, thus giving us the chance to move the meal along at a faster pace if we wanted. 

The new waitress overheard Kaede say that she was going to run her own pizza and pasta joint when she grows up.  Her speciality is going to be the cheese-free pizza, in honour of her mouldy milk hating Dad.  She asked Kaede if she would like to watch the chef make the pizzas to which she got an excited ‘yes’ answer.  This was Kaede’s equivalent of being asked into the cockpit of a plane to meet the pilot and she was gone like a shot.

After another round of drinks our mains arrived.  Fusilli Alla Rusticana for Storm, Spicy Beef pizza for the Mrs, Pepperoni Pizzas for the little’uns and Spaghetti with King Prawns for me.  Again, the silence gave testament to how good the food was.  Everybody enjoyed their meal, including my Wife the wannabe food critic, who has walked me out of more restaurants than she’s walked me in.  The kids deal was £4.95 for three courses plus a drink which really represented value for money.  The portion sizes were more than generous and yet the kids still had room for the obligatory ice-cream dessert. 

The toilets were clean, spacious and included baby changing facilities, although I count my blessings that I no longer have to avail of those.  Something we also no longer need is a high chair, but my good wife informed me that the ones they have there are the good ones, the ones she always felt safe (?) with.  Although Prezzo doesn’t pitch itself as a kiddie restaurant, you aren’t made to feel unwelcome for dragging your little monsters in with you.  It does act as a good stepping stone between the noisy play area eateries and the kind of restaurant you wouldn’t dream of bringing children to.

All in all the whole meal was a success and one I hope to repeat soon. 

Vouchercodes.co.uk have asked us to score Prezzo, so here are our all important score cards.

Who am I?

OK, stop me if you’ve heard this one. What do you call a Househusband that gets a full time, work from home job? No, no ideas? Nope, me neither. But whatever the answer is, that’s what I’ve become and now I’m suffering from an identity crisis. I’ve spent the best part of three years convincing people that a Stay at home Dad was a real thing, a real occupation, and now I’ve gone and blown it all by getting a ‘proper’ job.


Since this strange turn of events I’ve found that all the people from my old life, my running a pub doing a job type job, have found me a lot easier to deal with. They now seem able to talk to me about things other than my kids, like the kids were the only thing that defined me. They genuinely seem happier, almost safer, when they ask me how my day has been, safe in the knowledge I will be able to give them an answer they can relate to.

Instead of moaning about screaming kids decorating my carpet with permanent markers, I’ve found myself moaning about clients daring to have an opinion, stationery requirements and email etiquette. And while we’re on the subject of email etiquette, what’s with those people that add a P.S. to the end of an email? Are you really too lazy to move the mouse up a bit and insert the inane drivel you had momentarily forgot about, into the main text? Isn’t P.S. only relevant to the written word where you are unable to magically insert text?

Even worse than that, are all the bloody emoticons littering my inbox. I could barely cope with them on twitter or facebook, but aren’t we meant to be professionals here? Has the workplace changed so much during my brief sojourn into insanity? Imagine my shock when one of my male colleagues sent me an email that contained this sentence:

“I would <3 a beer right now.”

You want to stick your testicles in a pint of beer? Seriously? What kind of company had I started working for when not only do their employees manipulate their reproductive organs into inappropriate storage devices, but they openly boast about it as well? Then I started wondering how my female colleagues would appropriately respond. Would Rhonda from Customer Procurement reply thus?

“Me too, I’m going to % that bottle of beer as soon as I can.”

What’s scaring me the most is that I’m actually turning into one of them. I actually got excited about stationary today. I opened a new box of biros with the same excitement and anticipation that I used to reserve for a new pristine packet of wet wipes.

So now I feel like a bit of a fraud and it could not have come at a worse time. I have just been made the Class Rep at school, a fact that has shocked all that know me, no more so than ‘er-not-indoors. The head of the PTA collared me in the playground a month ago and asked me if I would like to take on this ‘pleasant responsibility’. The shock of one of the yummy mummies, sorry I mean THE yummy mummy actually approaching me, put me on the back foot, and my natural instinct to lie my arse off disappeared. The conversation went like this:

Yummy Mummy – How would you like to be the class rep?

Shocked Me – I really don’t think I’m the type of person you want for that kind of job.

Yummy Mummy – Of course you are, I see you chatting to people, you’re quite friendly, you’ll be fine. (Not perfect you’ll note, just fine.)

Scared Me – You may well have seen me chatting to people, but I’ll bet you haven’t seen many chatting back, they tend to avert their eyes like I’m selling The Big Issue.

Yummy Mummy – Don’t be silly, I’m sure lots of them buy The Big Issue.

Stumped Me - {gives a look of women’s logic incredulity}

Yummy Mummy – So I will put your name down then. (Also note the lack of question mark here)

Scrambling Me – Names, that’s it. I don’t know anybody’s names, I’m useless at them.

Yummy Mummy – You’re being silly again, of course you do.

Sardonic Me – Listen hon, I’ve known your for two years and whenever I refer to you I call you the tall blonde one. (She’s 7 foot 3 inches in Uggs)

Yummy Mummy – Well my name is Ann and you’ll be fine.

Surrendered Me – OK

So my rather long winded point being, is that now I have to speak to a load of Mums that I haven’t really had any dialogue with, and as sure as eggs are eggs they always ask me what I do for a living. I would normally answer with “I’m a househusband/Housebitch” and give them a ‘what of it stare’. That now feels like a lie though, and for reasons I cannot fathom makes me uneasy.

Am I, by saying that I’m able to do a full time job as well as my househusband duties, admitting that being a stay at home parent is really only half a job? Or am I telling the world that I am indeed Superman, and there isn’t anything I cannot achieve? Neither sit well with me to be honest because neither are true, as any real housewife or anyone that know my numerous failings (which is actually everyone that knows me) will testify.

Until I manage to figure this out I think I shall remain nameless. ‘The life and times of a Househusband’ may become ‘The life and times of a confused work from home, but what is work really when it comes to it, husband’. You can refer to me as that bloke that used to be funny but now thinks too much.

I have to go now, I have a wash to put on and a stationery request to file. Fluorescent Sharpies anyone?

P.S. My first responsibility as Class Rep was to organise and run the Bar at the Winter Fayre, hic, what a result.

I don't love Cricket, I like it

As I write, it’s a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon and I’m on my way to a cricket match. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t know the difference between a googly and a silly mid off, and the nuances of a Seamer or a Yorker are lost on me, but I had won the tickets and I tend not to look gift horses in the mouth. Thank goodness I’m not going to a test match then. A game that lasts five days without a result is not my idea of fun. I have friends that love the slow pace and nothingness of the game, but whenever I ask them what the appeal is the most common reply is that it’s a great day out and a good beer-up.

Despite the strong allure of sitting in the sun drinking lager all day, the idea that I would have to keep an eye out for a ball that weighs the same as a small child and is as hard as a Duckworth-Lewis calculation seems a step too far on the dangerous side. I mean, if I wanted to combine stupid risks and drinking, I would just go for a beer with my Brother-in-law in the Czech Republic.

Nope, I’m off to the new version of cricket, Twenty20. I know purists hate it, it’s fun, it’s fast and you actually get a result, so you can see their problem with it. Plus all the teams get to dress in bright colours and not those dreary old whites. From the point of view of a person that has to do all the washing at home, I’m anti white anyway. After all, you can’t spray fabreeze on something white when you’ve forgotten to wash it and still pretend it’s clean. With colours I can and often do.

Luckily enough I had won a pair of tickets, so I invited my cricket mad mate JG to come with me. Not only could I pick his brain on cricket law and etiquette, but he was also a booze hound not unlike myself, so he would obviously know the best place to sit. Apparently you need the perfect combination of view and accessibility to the bar. To be quite honest I wasn’t too worried about the view, I was escaping from the kids for the day, so we could have been watching women’s darts for all I cared.

Walking into the ground I was struck by how much quieter the crowd was compared to a football match. I realise that you get a lot less fans at a cricket match, even compared to those small provincial teams like Tottenham, but everything seemed quite jolly and subdued. There was no tension in the air, just a feeling of calculated nonchalance. Missing was the smell of fried onions, instead replaced by a heady mixture of Old Spice and linseed oil.

Beers needed to be procured first, seats second. Those kinds of priorities are ones I am always happy to go along with. As we took our place in a very polite and organised queue, I looked around to take in my surroundings. Above the bar were photos of all the previous Essex Captains, proud, distinguished, moustachioed men. Oh, and Ronnie Irani.

We stepped out of the clubhouse with our pints of Oranjeboom, a lager I thought had disappeared with my milk teeth. I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked out at the pitch, which we were viewing side on. I then had to shield my eyes again as the Middlesex team took to the field to warm up, resplendent in bright pink. I had put my back out the previous day so we decided to stand against the clubhouse wall for a while, the fact that we were standing next to the nearest door to the bar was nothing but mere coincidence.

As I was purchasing my third pint, the teams decided to take to the field and a polite round of applause rippled around the ground, more of a royal wave than a Mexican one. Essex were fielding first, and the fine chap to my right obviously mistook my three pint mellow face for that of a cricket expert. He voiced the opinion that we should open the bowling with someone that was proficient in the art of in-swinging. I voiced the opinion that I had only had a few drinks and it was a bit early to be asking me to throw my keys into the middle of the table. My new friend decided to move elsewhere.

It was towards the end of the innings, and mid pint number six, that I heard the glorious sound of ball hitting willow in the perfect pitch. I knew the ball had been hit for 6 before I even turned around to watch its trajectory. I had been asking the new gentleman standing next to me how much a cricket ball actually weighed, this had become annoyingly important to me as I had had an idea for a blog. The next sound I heard as I struggled to find the balls trajectory, was the noise of something weighing 163 grammes (I googled it in the end) and travelling 60 mph, hitting the brick wall a meter above my head. The ball bounced off the wall and hit the guy 4 rows in front of me in the back of the head.

Despite the shock of a near miss, I still managed to laugh like a loon at the poor bloke, which seemed to be the correct etiquette as everybody else was. I looked up to see the mark where the ball had struck and realised I was standing under the O in ESSEX COUNTY CRICKET. Maybe the opposition were using the circle as target practise, maybe it was a fluke? Either or, I decided to take a couple of steps to the left and stand underneath the Y. I mean, why not?

The innings soon ended and it was half time, or tea. I had stopped caring about the correct terminology by then, and started on the spirits as the pint glasses were becoming too heavy to hold. The Essex innings went by in a bit of a blur. I do remember that the bowler we had been having a pop at had then turned into an excellent batsman, but I may be wrong about that, they all looked the same to me. It all got a bit tense towards the end, I could tell because the crowd had actually started to make a bit of noise. We eventually lost by 11 runs, but apparently it didn’t matter because Surrey or Sussex or Stockbrokers XI, I don’t know which, had also lost so we were through to the next round.

I can’t really remember much about the journey home, although I do know we stopped in a pub before we got on the train. I also know that I was 10 minutes from home at 9pm, yet walked through the door at 11pm? The next morning my head hurt, my only consolation was that it probably didn’t hurt as much as it would have had the ball actually hit it.

In conclusion, the only difference my untrained eye can see between a Twenty20 match and a five day test is that with one you drink all afternoon, and the other you drink for five days. Maybe that’s why they call it a test?

Gardening Leave? Enjoy the garden then.(Part 1)

My wife was recently made redundant from the bank she had worked at for ten years, and was put on gardening leave for the last month of the process. She already had another job lined up, so there was no panic to look for a job and go on countless amounts of interviews, all she had to do was sit back and enjoy the kids for a month. I was also looking forward to a bit of down time, she could share a few of the daily chores, and maybe we could have a few leisurely lunchtime drinks at our local, the 'Sir Alfred Hitchcock'.

Unfortunately for me, rather than spending some time in his pub, I ended up feeling like I was in one of his films, 'Psycho' perhaps, and my Wife started looking like Tippi Hedren in 'The Birds', all manic and rushing around like a headless chicken every time one of the kids kicked off. This is not what I had in mind for that month, but it's what I got, and it resulted in me crossing off the days on the calendar waiting for her to start work again. I know it sounds cruel, but I think after reading my account of that fateful month, you will tend to agree with me.

"I think the house needs painting" were the first words out of her mouth on Day 1. "Of course dear, which room did you have in mind?" Hoping she would pick one of the small ones, the bathroom maybe, where we have just enough room to swing a mouse. "All of it, inside and outside. It hasn't been done in a while and is starting to look a bit shabby, a bit lived in." My reply of "but Darling dearest, is not the point of a house to be lived in, so by definition it will then look lived in?" cut no ice at all. I later heard her telling the water off for being too watery, and the stairs off for being too up-and-downy.

I spent the rest of Day 1 in Homebase (now known as Homewrecker) and then B&Q, because the former did not have the correct shade of white within its range. Our walls were off-white now, would a clean not suffice? Apparently not, we ended up with a shade called "Second Base Sue", it is white with just the mere hint of red. I thought that as I was stuck with this job I may as well add a few toys to the basket. So in went a new multi-purpose sander, the obligatory new paintbrushes (why I ever clean the old ones is beyond me), 3 rolls of masking tape (1 for painting use, 2 for general mischief and taping the kids together), and a new scary potted plant.

I returned home, and was duly invited upstairs to the bedroom. I must admit that whilst climbing the stairs, the thought that my luck was in and I was going to get an early 'reward' did cross my mind. I can only blame the paint fumes for this obviously stupid thought because, as was quickly pointed out, the next time she would be looking at the bedroom ceiling it, and the rest of the room, would be freshly painted. I rather grumpily started to prepare the room.

I don't actually mind the actual painting part of the process, that can be quite relaxing. It's all the washing, sanding, and moving things about part that absolutely does my head in, and I was tempted to skip this part. I have painted over cobwebs before and it is no big deal, but I was sulking now so I decided to work to rule. If Her Royal Highness Queen of all things Bossy was expecting a quick result, she had another thing coming. I was going to eke this out, lest she find me more jobs to do before this god-forsaken month was up.

By the time it was 2pm I was finally ready to start painting. I shouted downstairs "I'm about to start painting, you had best get some 'Painting Beer' ready, you know the rules." The 'rules' are very simple, provide beers for the duration of the painting. It has been scientifically proved (well my Dad said it and that's good enough for me) that your hand is steadier after a couple of beers, therefore improving the accuracy of your brush strokes. It is fair to say that my Wife is not a massive fan of these rules, but as I swear they are Gospel, she is forced to go along with them. Off she went round the corner, and I started to paint over the 'feature' red wall that she thought was a great idea four years ago, but obviously wasn't, and I've had to live with since then.

The Wife eventually returned, and as I had built a thirst up, I went straight to the fridge only to see one of the most perplexing things I have ever seen. She had only bought three beers. Three beers? I could not understand the thought process, who on earth buys three cans of lager? It actually takes more effort to but three than four, as you have to pull one out of the plastic thingy-me-jig that holds them all together. I don't like to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I was not best pleased. I offered my thanks, and took myself and one of my three beers, back upstairs.

A few hours later I shouted down that I was done, and did she want to inspect my work. Up she bounded, hardly containing her excitement (I really need a sarcasm icon to go here), and the inspection began. Almost immediately she pointed out that I had forgotten to do one of the walls. It was then I triumphantly informed her of sub clause a) of the 'rules', which reads "one beer per wall". She delivered three beers, I painted three walls. A fervent debate then followed, which I shall spare you the gory details of, but the end result was the fourth wall being painted, and a promise from her to never do something so daft again.

I would like to say that this was the only disagreement we had during this time, but it wasn't. I would like to say that all went smoothly from then, but it didn't. I would like to say that my wife could take a hint and continue to supply the beer, but she couldn't. Needless to say, this seems like a natural end to this particular chapter, so I end it here......for now.