is it really wrong to steal chocolate?

Last night Son caught me mid-mouthful with a mini Mars Bar I had poached from Twins' Halloween stash.

Him (from upstairs, looking over the bannisters): what are you eating?

Me (muffled): Nothing.

Him (coming downstairs): You are eating something.

Me (stuffing the rest in and making a dash for the larder to put sweetie bag back in its place): Nothing!

Him (appearing at the larder door): I can see you chewing.

Me (embarrassed and ashamed, swallowing rapidly): Oh, all right then. I stole a mini Mars Bar from the girls' bag. But I tell you what, if I give you a mini Twix from their bag as well, will you promise not to tell them.

Him: Oh, okay then.

So, with that short exchange of words, I have now undone eight precious years of moral education. My eight year old has learnt both to lie and steal, and who has he learnt it from? Not some ne'er do well young scallywag at school, but from me, his own mother.

I hung my head in shame (and kept quiet about the Reese's peanut butter cups I nicked from his bag the night before).

Tomorrow is Dog Tihar. Meena and Sanu have the day off, but Meena told me she has instructed the gate guard to use some marigolds from the garden to make Gary a garland. I'm not sure he'll want to do that, so have found a couple of fake flower necklaces belonging to the Twins for him, and I'm thinking a piece of chicken liver pate on toast would probably be his preferred Tihar treat. Maybe we can use some red lipstick of mine to do a tikka for him. It was Crow Tihar today, although I didn't see many crows wearing garlands. I'm not entirely sure how one is supposed to celebrate with crows. There's possibly some Hindu crow etiquette that I'm unaware of. Saturday is Cow Tihar, and someone will no doubt turn up at our gate with a sacred bovine, expecting something, and taking us unawares whilst we're still in our Saturday morning pyjamas. Perhaps we should set aside some extra specially tasty blades of grass, who knows? Certainly not me. This is my third Tihar in Nepal, and you'd think I should have got a grip and discovered why we're blessing select animals and not others. I mean, if you're not a dog, a cow or a crow at the moment, you're going to feel pretty left out. There's probably a whole bunch of discontented cats in the neighbourhood, trying to make out they don't care about not having a holy blessing day (meow, who wants a flower garland anyway? Even if they offered me a tikka I wouldn't have one, etc.).

Sorry, I should go to bed now, as 6am will come as a hideous surprise if I don't.

Take care x