CAN'T BBQ. WON'T BBQ.

Posted by Katy Regan at 20:19 on 15 Jun 2010

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How hard can having a barbeque be? Very hard if you're me it turns out. Fergus went back to school this week after an epic half-term which turned into almost a fortnight what with two extra days added on for teacher training.

Almost two weeks in which to amuse a five year old kid who is so full of beans, his first words (shouted at full volume from his room so that I am jolted awake thinking something terrible's happened) are usually "Mum! Let's CHAT." by which he usually means some sort of ‘guess which pre-historic, extinct mammal' I am (how many horns I have, where my fossils can be found and what evolution turned me into. Also, does Jesus have X-ray vision?)  All at an hour where I can barely move let alone perform cognitive functions of any sort. God love him.

I had planned a week of activities. I was going to be Activity Mum. We were doing golf, we were doing farm visits, this was going to be awesome! I have spent so many school holidays and summers either working full time or immersed in a book that just being able to actually hang out with him was a real treat.  I was then doing a goddamn World Cup barbeque for him and his little mates. Three of them, there were. How hard could it be? It was a gorgeously hot day, Fergus had his face painted with the St George cross. This would be like a mini World Cup fete, right there in my back garden.  

The kids - all running around in their pants now like all children should on a burning hot day (scuse the pun)  all trusted me - why would they not? Their little faces alight with the thought of a barbeque (and other things too if I were to be trusted). Not having an actual barbeque wasn't going to stop me, I'd bought a disposable one, burgers, hot-dogs and marshmallows The Works.

"Okay kids, this is BBQ time!" I announced. But how to light the little tray of what looked like cat litter? I took it into the kitchen. Damn it. I had no lighter (remembering my track record with the scented candle I should have known better). So I lit a piece of paper on my gas ring, but oh, what's this f**K! My house is nearly on fire. I drop said piece of paper into the barbeque - so now we have a small fire on my kitchen work-top and the house was filling with smoke. But I didn't panic, not yet. I remained calm in the face of a crisis. There were children involved.

I carried the now flaming tray into the garden but it nearly burnt my fingers so I dropped it, smoking onto the paved back-yard, kids looking on, a look on their faces like, "Jesus, how are you still alive at your  age?!"

Wafting it with tea-towels it finally calmed down. "Don't come near the fire, folks!" I yelled. "Stand back from the fire!" Which of course they all ignored and gathered, fascinated by the smouldering wreck which now stank of burning paper and I hadn't tried to put any food on it yet. Chicken drumsticks were first, but after half an hour waiting for them to do anything I transferred said stinking, charred meat to the oven inside.

" Right, marshmallows! Marshmallows are what we need wee campers!"  But I didn't know you had to put them on a fork, did I? Surely one would need Gold Award in Duke of Edinburgh to know that. So I just dropped them from a great height, straight onto the barbeque. Oh. Now they were just dripping, gooey masses, oozing onto the coals and producing enough smoke to fill the garden. Then one of the mums arrived, wading through the smoke to pick up her son, but he hadn't had anything to eat yet because the chicken was still in the oven. "Hello!" I said, as she coughed up a lung. "All having  a great time here! Teething problems with the barbie, but we're all under control. "

 I put burgers on the barbie in a mad attempt to look like I had this all under control. By now it was 8pm.

"But I want my marshmallows before I go home, mummy"  her little boy cried, nearly in tears. They ate them straight from the packet in the end. He never did get any chicken. Or burgers. The next morning, I found three incarcerated remains of burger sitting amongst a mass of melted, black marshmallow.

Activity outdoors mum, that's me. A roaring success, I'd say.

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