The Side-Plate Diet: New Research On Portion Sizes

Posted in Diet, Health by buzzanniebee

Hello friends

As many of you know, I am a keen proponent of losing weight, or keeping weight off, by controlling your portion sizes. You eat normally (though healthily) but use smaller plates to impose control over your food intake. This has worked extraordinarily well for me. I started doing The Side Plate Diet about eleven months ago and it has transformed by body and my relationship to eating.

The BMJ this week reports that

~ Theresa Marteau from the University of Cambridge and colleagues recently published a Cochrane review that found the “most conclusive evidence to date” that people consume more food or drinks from larger size portions or packages, and when using larger items of tableware.

Additionally, they say that reducing portion sizes may mean going back to the noticeably smaller tableware which was being used in the 1950s, and suggest that one change which could make a difference would be,

~ Designing tableware to encourage smaller mouthfuls, such as, shallow plates, straight sided glasses, cutlery.

My views and information on plate sizes, if you want to read more, are here. And if you are worried about your weight and would like to try The Side Plate Diet, use the search bar at the right of the blog, and have a look at this.

This new research has some great suggestions and is taking a very sensible and longer-term view about reducing over-consumption and preventing obesity. The most recent statistics showing the problem in the UK of childhood obesity are, frankly, alarming.

The possibility of a new sugar-tax being implemented is also currently at the top of the agenda here, but we have a long way to go.

Using smaller plates is a very easy approach to dieting. It works.

Please share the buzz ~

Annie Bee x

28Nov2015

Brilliant Idea: Free Fruit Bonanza

Posted in Australia, free fruit, Health, New Zealand, Parenting, Supermarket by buzzanniebee

Sometimes you see a new idea which is so brainy, it makes your eyes water.

In the UK, Woolworths is sadly a thing of the past. Many of us still fondly remember Ladybird kids clothes and Pick’n’Mix. It is a thriving supermarket chain in other countries though, and has recently successfully trialled offering a free piece of fruit to all kids entering all of its (961) Australian stores, from a complimentary basket of apples, pears, bananas and mandarins. The idea was originally put to the test in their New Zealand shops (which trade as Countdown) and seems to be popular. Woolies expect to be giving away about one million pieces of fruit a year and assures consumers that the cost of fruit will not rise to compensate.

If you have ever had a child in tow who could name 107 places they’d rather be than in a supermarket with Mummy (unless she is going to provide biscuits/sweets/chocolate/magazine and toys from the shelves at will) the offer of a piece of fruit sounds to me like a welcome initiative. Anything to help keep mum sane and Little Jonnie happy. And of course this option is healthy, one of your 5-a-day, and it will presumably encourage the habit of healthy snacking when sitting in the trolley. Better than a packet of Wotsits.

Tesco has already trialled it here in the UK at one, forward-thinking store in Lincolnshire and have decided to roll it out to 15 Glasgow branches. Hopefully it will prove popular enough to go nationwide.

It won’t end the sound of the screaming kid in the trolley ~ and lord knows we have all been there. It might help though and I imagine it could be an incentive for parents to shop at that supermarket rather than another. Let’s see.

supermarket children

My own trips to the supermarket are a bit like Groundhog Day but without the humour. Or romance. I might not be screaming out loud but inside my head there is often an ear-piercing silent yell. Perhaps the free piece of fruit will eventually be offered not just kids but exasperated shoppers in their 50s. We can but hope. Great if you are on a diet. Blood sugar dropped? Have an apple. Feeling rough after a long night at the bar? Help yourself to a banana. Bored with the duties of being the Fridge Fairy? Here’s a pear.

I think it could work.

Annie Bee x

21Nov2015

What’s In A Name?

Posted in moniker, names by buzzanniebee

I am a part-time music teacher and one of the things I do with my groups of 2-3-4 year olds is clap the rhythms of their names. Some are very interesting indeed: “Maximus Henry Wittlestone” takes some beating ~ and may say something about the area in which I live, not to mention that he goes to a private nursery where snack time involves blueberries and chia seeds rather than marmite sandwiches. For every Maximus, there are plenty of Harrys, Olivers, Scarletts and Poppys. When we do this exercise, I often point out that my mono-syllabic name is very boring indeed to clap. I love my name though and wonder what it would be like to dislike a name for life ~ it must be awful.

One problem I do have with my moniker is that I am called by my middle name. This has led to a lifetime of doctors and dentists calling me by my first name; I drew the line at my first wedding when the registrar referred to me incorrectly. I let him continue for a while before an aunt of mine tapped me on the shoulder and suggested I correct him.

Both my parents were called by their middle names, so you’d have thought they might have thought twice about landing me with the same problem. Mind you, to further confuse things, my mother was too nervous on her first day at boarding school to correct the teacher reading out the register, so everyone who knew Mum after she was 11 call her one thing and her family call her another. Some people are deeply suspicious that I chose my second name, and hate my first, but the reality is it was my parents who welcomed me into this confusing -enough -already world, that called me by my middle name.

When I started this blog I was very amused to see that there is another “Annie Bee” who describes herself thus,

I used to be a professional disciplinarian and I spent much of my time spanking, caning and tawsing naughty boy’s bottoms. Those days are over, but I still regularly thrash my partner…..

She writes books as well as a blog, and it delights me to wonder whether people might be mixing us up at the google search stage. Those wanting a few pointers on corporal punishment might be surprised to find me ranting about the menopause or discussing the importance of portion control when dieting.

So if you have come to this page expecting instructions on using ‘hellstraps’, you are forgiven the confusion.

Have a super weekend

Annie Bee x

17Nov2015

Surprising Finds #6

Posted in Bedfordshire, East Hyde, Holy Trinity Church East Hyde., listed buildings, Luton Hoo, mausoleum by buzzanniebee

Not far from where I live, in the neighbouring county of Bedfordshire, there is a very pretty church on a winding back-road, which is notorious for speeding fines, if little else.

Officially known as The former Holy Trinity Church, it is in the small hamlet of East Hyde.

It was designed by Benjamin Ferrey in a Neo-Norman style and built between 1840 and 1841. It has two large Norman piers flanking the entrance, with open staircases with Norman colonettes turning left and right, culminating on the left in the single asymmetrically placed turret. It is a Grade II Listed Building. It was declared closed for public worship by the Diocese of St Albans in 2008, but is currently in use as a Greek Orthodox Church dedicated to St Charalambos.

Just north of the church, through the graveyard, is an incredibly impressive mausoleum which is a listed building in its own right. It is the tomb of the family of Julius Wernher whose country pile, Luton Hoo (now a Hotel) is a mile or two up the road. German-born, at the time of his death in 1912 he was one of the richest men in the United Kingdom with a fortune of £12 million ~ much of it made from diamond mines, and much of it spent during his lifetime, on art.

~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~

mausoleum @ Holy Trinity Church East Hyde

~ ~ ~ ~

It is often worth stopping at small churches such as this one. They can be little gems. On a wet, muddy and windy day in November, it was well worth a visit.

Annie Bee x

11Nov2015

The Everlasting Menopause ~ Is There An Upside?

Posted in 50+, ageing, Health, menopause, Women by buzzanniebee

If, like me, you have been dealing with the menopause for absolutely ages (as my memory has been melted by the hot flushes, I am having to guess that I am now entering my 5th year) you might be wondering whether this mid-life cloud has a silver lining. My initial answer would be, ‘does it bollox’ but let’s see.

I turned to my Personal Assistant, Google, and asked the question.

First up is Web MD and a cheerful obs-gyny doctor from Maine who suggests that,

“The truth is that women over 50 are just hitting their stride,” she writes in the introduction of her new book, The Secret Pleasures of Menopause.

So secret that they are certainly hidden from me. She goes on to say,

“You can turn yourself on. You can rewire your brain and your body to feel more pleasure. The brain is the biggest sex organ in the body.”

Hmmmm.

I must say there are plenty of listings on Google for what can improve the menopause (yoga, exercise, nitric oxide, acupuncture, hops, and a neck-cooler to mention a few) but not so many for the upside. I do eventually find some joker who says this,

“Menopause is a gift, a lantern lighting the way to significant transformation in all areas of your life………. menopause is not the wicked witch. She does not drain women of any vital function nor turn them old, weak, crotchety, or unattractive with a wave of her wand”.

As youngsters (for whom their 50s is light years away) might say: ~ LOL

There is some information out there which I do agree with: Yes, it is natural. Yes, it (eventually) means no more periods and contraception. But is it a stage during which, as this cheerful woman suggest,

“…. the door opens to receive the wisdom of our lineage”?

That may be a step too far, even for the most optimistic of us. I’m not sure I even know what it means.

My only hope is that it is nearing the end. I can’t say my symptoms (brain atrophy, hot flushes, poor sleep are the highlights) have left me feeling particularly cheery.

Menopausal rant over ~ I feel a lot better already and I haven’t even got my neck-cooler out.

Annie Bee x

9Nov2015

Monday Morning: Let’s Hear It For Teenagers

Posted in bullying, Memory Star app, Monday, teenage hackers, teenagers by buzzanniebee

God love ’em! Teenagers! In the last few weeks there have been some notable teenager stories in the news, reminding us all that kids come in all shapes and sizes, all with different strengths and talents.

First we had the (alleged) teenage hacker who rummaged around in Talk Talk’s drawers, causing a media storm and much angst. Teenage hackers have been round since the beginning of the internet, and school-aged computer whizzes have not been able to stop themselves from hacking the CIA, the Pentagon, the NHS, Scotland Yard, Interpol, Sony and Apple to name but a few. A number of them have gone on to be employed by some very impressed tech giants, and some have ended up behind bars. All of them have hopefully highlighted security gaps which the adults, arguably, should have been on top of in the first place.

At the same time, some other teenagers came onto my radar, this time for designing an app to promote healthy living. In light of the massive amount of bad press given over to social media and the effects it has on our kids, a pharma company (Astellas) put out a call to all 14-16 years olds in the UK. The winners were a group of five 15-year-olds from St Paul’s Catholic College in Burgess Hill, Sussex – Sacha Botting, Dominique Froud, Jack Gumm, Gemma Kelly and Zuzia O’Donoghue – who drew on their own experiences of the pressures of school, friendships, home life and social media to come up with the idea. Essentially the app, which is called Memory Star (already available here), is a ‘virtual memory jar’ – a place where youngsters can keep their memories (photos, messages etc) but not share them. And that is the kicker: whereas so much of their lives is now out there for anyone to see, this is completely private.

O’Donoghue said: “There’s so much pressure to present a very happy image on social media. There’s something very competitive about it. Who can get the most likes? Who has the nicest life? You have this sort of perfect persona that you’re putting forward of yourself, but you don’t always feel like that”.

I for one would not go back to being a teenager for anything. Being one is difficult. Having them is arguably worse, and, while in my day (the 1870s – just kidding) there was a great deal of pressure to be popular, pretty, clever and have the ‘right’ shoes, today those pressures are undoubtedly worse. The burden is two-fold (playground and social media) and the bullies find it easier to be nasty from behind a smart phone.

So let’s hear it for the young ~ and while being in your 50s has its troubles (the everlasting-menopause is pushing my sense of humour to its very limits), the vast majority of teenagers go on to be delightful adults.

The Memory Star app could be a lovely Christmas present for a teenager too.

Have a good week

Annie Bee x

31Oct2015

My Autumn Project ~ A Five-Panel Folding Screen

Posted in decoupage, folding screen, homemade, room divider, shoji screen by buzzanniebee

While I am not (yet) at the stage in life where I feel the need to host a “crafternoon”, I do enjoy making things. A few years ago I started adding items like, ‘drill’, ‘electric saw’, ‘hedge trimmer’, and ‘axe’ to my birthday and christmas lists. A few of these have been ignored; I think Mr Bee is worried about me with an axe – partly for the sake of the trees and perhaps a little by the thought of me chopping off a foot. And he might have a point. My eldest son earns his living from his hands and has been a great encouragement to me, happily explaining how to wield the drill and helping (well, heading-up) various large projects: an outdoor tortoise enclosure as well as the concrete base for the greenhouse being the most onerous. My BF is also very good with a drill, and fixes things which many of us would happily take to the rubbish dump. I am still reeling from the sight of her taking apart the engine of a lawn mower many summers ago. Anyway, I enjoy making.

This autumn, in light of my empty nest and also because I find TVs rather ugly to look at in a room, I decided to build a folding screen to stand in front of the telly in what we still call the ‘playroom’ – this room has been the natural habitat of the kids since we moved in 15 years ago. In that time it has grown up at roughly the same rate as the Bees, and is now looking a bit more adult in nature (cheerio beanbags, boxes of toys and Disney dvds). The end of the room where they gravitate to is the tech-end, where they can veg out in front of the TV, DVD player and PS4. I would hate to count the proportion of their lives spent relaxing in this corner, but they seem to have turned out well so I mustn’t complain. Now the Bees have flown the nest, I wanted to hide this unattractive, black tech area and decided that the best solution would be a folding screen; that way, when the Bees return during the holidays, they can remove the screen and once again go into an intellectual coma in their favourite spot.

I could have bought a screen but making one appealed and I thought I would share the process with you here.

Firstly I did some homework: I watched a few youtube lessons, read up on some websites, found some pictures of screens I liked (have a look at my pinterest board here) and made a list of what I needed to buy. I roughly measured (and I will come to this later) the space I wanted to screen, and then added a bit, due to the nature of the screens being angled. I debated long and hard whether to keep the tops of the panels straight or use a jig-saw to make them rounded. In the end, given what I decided to cover the screens in, I went for straight and simple.

My list was as follows:

5 mdf boards, cut to size (width: 0.5m; height: 1.5m). The mdf needs to be thick enough so it doesn’t bend.

a lot of PVA glue (which I called UVA glue at my local paint shop, but the guy in there knows I am a bit of an idiot!)

maps from charity shops

wallpaper (or alternatively you could try using material)

flush hinges

paint brushes and dust sheets

I also ended up using my staple gun, which was one of those slightly dangerous pieces of kit I already owned.

So the first step was to go to the timber merchants to buy the mdf. There are some pretty scary men working in those places, and you can just imagine how much charm this middle-class, middle-aged woman had to muster on a drizzly grey day at a lumber yard at the back-end of a rough industrial estate. Still, all’s well that ended well and I managed to conjure a smile of out of the old gnarled guy who cut it all to my spec, though it was very hard work. The initial conversation went a bit like this. Let’s call the gentleman – um, Unfriendly.

Me (smiling): “Hello. I need some mdf please”

Unfriendly: “Yes”

Me (still smiling): “Do you sell mdf?”

Unfriendly: “Yes”

Me (smile-free): “OK. And where might I find the mdf?”

Unfriendly: “In there”, pointing to a shed the size of a small primary school.

The cost for the boards was about £85; you could of course source panels from skips or maybe charity shops, and old, interesting doors could make a quirky and cost-effective folding screen too (there is a picture of one on the pinterest board).

We all know that preparation is key, so I got everything organised, threw dust sheets over anything that could get unwanted glue on it, made a cup of tea and brought in my first sheet of mdf.

My plan was that one side of the 5 screens would be covered in vintage maps, and for the other sides I chose some pretty wallpaper. Firstly, you have to coat the mdf with a layer of PVA glue, to seal it. While that was drying I started cutting out bits of the maps ready to start the process of decoupage – ie gluing the cut out paper to the object.

Once the maps have been glued into place, including the sides of the mdf, but not going over onto the back, and once it has all dried, you brush yet more glue over the top of the entire thing; 2-3 coats gives it a nice shine and (like varnish) will stop it from being too knocked about. Repeat times 5, then flip the panels over, seal the mdf and start gluing the wallpaper on. I asked my local paint-shop guy whether I should use wallpaper paste, but he said the PVA would be fine. He was right. By complete fluke, the rolls of wallpaper were within a few millimetres of being exactly the right size for the panels. If you are going to use wallpaper, this is definitely worth bearing in mind.

Getting the wallpaper and maps to stick to the 1cm thick edges of the panels was a bit tricky and I did end up using my staple gun.

I decided to use flush hinges and found the best value was from Screwfix, where I got 20 of them for about £8.

That meant I could put 4 (or indeed 5 if I wished) per panel. Now this was the point at which I made a fundamental error: in my joy at having got that far with no mishaps, and my impatience and lack of logic, I screwed all the hinges to the same sides of all 5 panels. Any old fool knows that they need to be alternate.

So hopefully that all makes sense. The end result, once I got the hinges right looks like this:

It is quite heavy and the whole lot did topple over onto me while I was screwing on the hinges (which is fiddly without a helper) but my scream did not go unnoticed and I survived to tell the tale.

Total cost, bearing in mind I chose to buy 2 different rolls of wallpaper at £20 each (so have plenty left over for other projects) was about £140. I could definitely have done it cheaper, but for a first shot, I am very pleased and it does the job of hiding the TV. It is also rather bigger than I needed. Four panels would have sufficed. So the last piece of advice is, don’t guess what the size should be and cross your fingers like I did!

Annie Bee x

23Oct2015

Utterly Unscientific (But Fun) Gluten-Free Taste Testing ~ Cookies

Posted in celiac, coeliac, Coeliac Disease, cookies, gluten, gluten free, Prewett's by buzzanniebee

We coeliacs have to look far and wide for our fun (although I concede that eating gluten-free [GF] foods is much easier than it was even 10 years ago).

So I decided to invite a few coeliacs around to Bee HQ to sample some GF cookies. Just an excuse to forego a proper breakfast and move straight to the carb/sugar rush? Perhaps, but also simply a bit of fun and a good opportunity to meet some new people.

Where did I recruit these lovely cookie-eating-helpers? The town I live in has a group FaceBook page specifically for parents – people on it are helpful, polite and friendly so I decided that was a good place to start. I was hoping for a group of 5-6, but conducted the taste testing on a weekday morning when I was not teaching; the majority of people were of course at work, and others had child-minding issues. Oh well, all the more cookies for us – but thank you to those who were enthusiastic but couldn’t come along.

I will say upfront that this was in no way a scientific experiment. To be clear, A) there were only 3 of us doing the tasting. B) The cookies and biscuits were all slightly different, though themed around CHOCOLATE (hooray!) In a proper taste testing, you would have 6 plain digestives, for example, and conclude which is the best. Unfortunately the range of GF foods does not allow this when it comes to cookies, though I intend to do a bread tasting, which would better meet that criteria. The other thing to mention is that all the biscuits/cookies were from a GF section of the shop. There are some perfectly lovely GF options (the Mrs Crimble’s range for example) of macaroons etc, but these are aimed at what I believe prisoners call the “Gen Pop” (general population) and what some coeliac wags call “Muggles”!

I should also be clear that all cookies were bought by me, and I have nothing to gain from the results, other than hopefully giving you some useful information here on this page.

So, with hearty thanks to my two new coeliac buddies, Jackie and Sarah, I give you the low-down on which cookies left us cold and which could have passed for ‘normal’.

The five I chose to test were as follows, as they were all available on the same day from my High Street, here in the ‘burbs:

TESCO FINEST – FREE FROM All Butter Chocolate Millionaire. 5 biscuits, 185g, £1.35
DOVES FARM – ORGANIC AND FREE FROM Double Chocolate Cookies. 7 cookies, 180g, £2.25, bought from my High St, independent health food shop
MARKS AND SPENCER – MADE WITHOUT WHEAT RANGE Triple Chocolate Cookies 10 cookies, 170g, £2.50
PREWETT’S – GLORIOUSLY GLUTEN FREE Rich Triple Chocolate Cookies 8 cookies, 150g, £2.29 bought in my local Waitrose, which didn’t have any own-brand GF choc biscuits or cookies for us to test.
PREWETT’S Milk Chocolate Digestives 14 biscuits, 155g, £1.50 bought in Sainsbury’s which also didn’t have any own- brand for the taste-testing on the day I shopped.

So what was the result? Our least favourites were described as “dry, bland, powdery, hard, greasy, oily, insubstantial, pale”. The ones we much preferred solicited descriptions such as, “crisp, chocolatey but not too sweet, melt in the mouth, nice balance of bite and crumble”.

The make which all 3 of us least liked was the Doves Farm (“powdery, gritty, not much flavour, dry, brittle, bland”) and the best (also unanimously) were the Prewett’s Triple Chocolate Cookies (“appetising, chunky, chocolate-coated, delicious”).

I very rarely buy biscuits (unless we have coeliac visitors) because, once opened, I lack the will-power to not plough on through the entire packet before the kettle has even boiled. I had never even come across the Prewett’s make before this week, so that was an interesting find for me. So who are they? Now based in Bristol, they do a large range of healthy and free-from foods, and you can order from their website here as well as finding their products in supermarkets and health food shops nationwide. Interestingly, their Chocolate Digestives also came out well, despite looking rather less interesting.

So, my new pals and I discussed good GF recipes, and made various recommendations to each other, including this book, “The GF Cook-book for Kids”; the No G website; A Basing Cakes; an entirely GF cafe/restaurant (how often do you hear that?!!) near me here in Hertfordshire called The Saddlery Cafe which I cannot wait to visit and Atkins and Potts who apparently do exquisite GF sauces.

So a good morning’s work. Unscientific for sure, but a lot of fun, and we all agreed that the trials and tribulations of having Coeliac Disease are diminished when shared between friends over a cup of tea or coffee. And cookies.

Annie Bee x

20Oct2015

Ai Weiwei @ The Royal Academy

Posted in Ai Weiwei, art, China, Chinese contemporary art, exhibition, Royal Academy by buzzanniebee

I was very privileged to go to a private viewing of the Ai Weiwei exhibition at the RA in London a few days ago. I have never been to see a major exhibition without another hundred or so other people crammed into the space trying to get a good look at the art, so it was amazing to be able to wander about with only a handful of others and take my time learning about this extraordinary man and his art.

I make no claim to being knowledgeable about art, so won’t attempt to write down my thoughts on the exhibition. The Royal Academy say this though

With typical boldness, the chosen works explore a multitude of challenging themes, drawing on his own experience to comment on creative freedom, censorship and human rights, as well as examining contemporary Chinese art and society.

I took some snaps on my iphone to whet your appetite and I highly recommend a visit. The Royal Academy itself is a thing of great beauty and whenever I visit places like that in London, I am reminded how extremely lucky I am to live where I do, with such history and architecture and culture available to me.

I was walking down Piccadilly once in my early 30s, going to a business meeting and I bumped into my parents ~ it was a surprise to the 3 of us and I was reminded of it on Saturday. A lovely memory and a lovely evening out with Mr Bee.

The most powerful piece, in my view, is his memorial to the 5000 children who died in the Sichuan earthquake. I could not do it justice with my little camera, but I urge you to go and see it.

This description from the Royal Academy website explains it beautifully, but you need to see it to understand its power:

The largest gallery at the RA will houseStraight, Ai Weiwei’s poignant response to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. Poorly built schools in the Sichuan province – held up by steel rods which twisted and mangled in the quake – were devastated, leaving thousands of students dead. These rods (which Ai had labourers straighten by hand) make up the 90-ton floor-based sculpture, that is laid out in broken undulations recalling fault lines.

A couple of the little signs in the Royal Academy itself also took my eye:

Info on the exhibition can be found here.

Annie Bee x

12Oct2015

Meat-Free Monday

Posted in meat free monday, meatless monday, Monday, Pumpkin, pumpkin soup, vegetarian by buzzanniebee

Welcome to a new week

For a couple of years here at Bee HQ we have been observing Meat-free Monday. We are unapologetic carnivores, although we do eat quite a lot of fish, and generally eat very healthily; for many reasons it seemed like a good idea to devote at least one day to eating a plant-based diet. Some of the Bees found this easier than others, and I must admit we do sometimes eat fish on that day which may not be 100% in the spirit of the thing. I have found that interesting salads and soups work best for the evening meal.

So what does Wiki say about the background to what is now a fairly well-known concept?

The history is quite interesting and although restarted in 2003 as a public health awareness program, the idea of sticking to a meat-free day once a week goes back (in the US anyway) to WW1. President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation calling for every Tuesday to be meatless and for one meatless meal to be observed every day, making a total of nine meatless meals each week. The United States Food Administration urged families to reduce consumption of key staples to help the war effort. Conserving food would support U.S. troops as well as feed populations in Europe where food production and distribution had been disrupted by war.

And why Mondays? Well, Monday is typically the beginning of the work week, the day when individuals settle back into their weekly routine. Unhealthy habits that prevailed over the weekend can be forgotten and replaced by positive choices. Here in the UK it is as much an environmental campaign as a health initiative. Many western countries around the world have similar schemes, encouraging us all to eat veggie for at least one specified day per week. The McCartneys (Paul et al) are great exponents of this movement and their website is worth a visit if you want information and inspiration.

So what will I be eating today? I imagine a very simple avo smash on toast with a few cherry tomatoes and then tonight I will be cooking a new recipe (for me): pumpkin soup. I have found what looks like a good, easy, nutritious recipe at BBC Good Food which has excellent ratings (though with a few warnings to avoid buying a “halloween pumpkin” as they are not bred for their taste, so I am hoping to find a proper one at the supermarket).

One of our favourite books we read to the Baby Bees when they were little was ‘Pumpkin Soup’ by Helen Cooper. A classic, beautifully illustrated tale for toddlers. Mr Bee and I can still quote from it, a decade and a half after it being a bedtime favourite. Perhaps that is what we will be doing this evening as we tuck in!