Families' housing meeting at the welfare centre today. Twins viewed it as a good opportunity to ask for as many chocolate biscuits as possible, in the knowledge that I was bound to capitulate simply to keep them quiet. This is a tactic they practised earlier on in the week when we went to Son's class assembly at school (the affect on them was probably quite similar to taking 10-year-old girls to a McFly concert: they screamed with pure adoration when Son recited his very important line from 'The elves and the shoemaker', spouting sprays of half-chewed chocolate jungle animals all over the yummy mummy in front).
Went along to the meeting at the welfare centre because a friend wants to get a new play park put in on camp. This is a good thing, as the current one is a soulless hole of metal frames and wierd springy things, whose main aim appears to be catching ambitious toddlers and sending them straight to casualty. I have been there once with all three children and had to have a very long lie down afterwards. So I'm fully behind the idea.
Unfortunately there were lots of other things that had to be discussed. At length.
Should we name and shame people who park with their wheels on the curb? What's to be done about the teenagers who drink alcopops in the play park in the evenings (I say leave them to it - kids that age have no concept of their own mortality, so let them down ten bottles of WKD and have a go on the killer climbing frame)? Why have married soldiers been using the skips that are only for the use of soldiers in the block? Are there enough dog poo bins? What's to be done about owners who don't clean up after their dogs?
At this point I managed to look outraged, but kept quiet. Decided it was best not to mention the time that Dog was caught short in front of the Brigadier's house and I found I was out of nappy sacks. Although to be fair, that was a long time ago. I don't think Dog has contributed that much to the current military turd crisis, mainly because I keep forgetting to feed him, so I think he rarely poos at all these days. Not quite sure how he is managing to sustain himself as I don't seem to have had to buy dog food for months. Maybe all those times when I let him out into the garden and forget to let him in, he's nipping out through a hole in the fence and skedalling in search of nourishment. Perhaps he's even got some other family leaving out titbits for him (quite likely, actually, as I know of one family on camp who leave out roast chickens for the foxes). The traitorous tart.
Eventually it was decided that a new play park was a good idea, and that one of the dog poo bins should be relocated.
So that was an hour and a half well spent.