by Oona Flucker
One of the greatest health problems of summer is children.
Having them around the house instead of safely enclosed in school for most of the daylight hours can provoke feelings of high anxiety and mounting stress even the most placid and well-meaning of folk.
If the weather is foul then such problems can be multiplied. Even in fine weather, keeping children occupied (and so your own health and well-being in check) can still be a trial few really have the stomach to endure.
I have yet to be cursed with children – although my husband, Rev Timothy, being a man of God, wants a mighty brood – so I am largely free of such summertime stress.
But that doesn’t stop me from dispensing sage words of advice alongside ointment, dressings and personal hygiene products at my village pharmacy.
My best advice is to give children work to do, but to make them think it is actually a game they are playing.
I have prompted two fine examples this very week.
The first involves Veronica Harmon-Icker’s little lad Irwin, a hyperactive little s**t with no f***ing manners and a tendency to stick his fingers up his own a***e at the drop of a hat.
I knew Irwin had a penchant for mechanical things, so my solution gratefully taken up by his high-maintenance and overly-sexed mother was to send him off to the local garage to “play” at being a hydraulic ramp.
Here was Irwin, yesterday, helping the mechanics to fix a small truck:
Everyone’s happy. The mechanics save wear and tear on their usual hydraulic equipment, the little gob-sh**e Irwin gets to play all summer and not f***ing terrorise everyone with a mile-and-a-half radius and his mother gets to lounge about all day like lady f***ing muck.
I’ve also dispensed some fantastic advice to Eleanor Handwasher, who has no fewer than six of the f***ing little s***s to look after in the summer.
There not all her’s, obviously, some of the b******s are actually b******s belonging to single mothers and she’s their child-minder.
Anyway, I knew the Army was doing some work at the firing range on t’other side of the hills at Hints and they were struggling with some mine clearance.
So my solution was to get the six puking little w*****s to practice stilt walking on the mine fields. Here they were, yesterday, before they landed on the wrong spot and made everything go f***ing boom-boom!
It did make me laugh when Mrs Handwasher asked if this was a “fairly dangerous game for young boys to be playing?”
She seemed suitably reassured when I answered: “Does the f***ing Pope s**t in the bl***y woods?”
So, remember, keeping children occupied this summer is my number one health tip.
Give them something to do that will tie them up (literally, if you want) until it is time for bed. Better still, pack them off with grandparents somewhere far away and enjoy the f***ing hot weather and some peace of mind.
Happy holidays everyone!
