My secret weapon

Every mother knows about arsenic hour. Some parents also call it witching hour, but the definition is the same.

It’s that hour before dinner when the kids are running in circles, screaming for pizza and you cannot find the cat. If you listen very carefully (which frankly is impossible) then you would hear it mewing piteously from wherever it’s been locked, right next to the defrosting mince and your best lipstick.

Actually we don’t even own a cat. I hate cats, and enjoy fantasing about them coming to untimely ends. But that is what would happen during arsenic hour if we did.

So to get through this time of the day, you need to have a few tricks up your sleeve. One of these is broad beans.

J loves to help cook. If she had a choice she’d like to boil water, chop pumpkin – all the dangerous stuff. I quietly suspect that paramedics wouldn’t really improve my arsenic hour, so I’m always on the hunt for kid friendly jobs to give her.

Take note, mothers. Shelling broad beans will entertain a preschooler for an hour. After that, you blanch the broad beans, then you need to skin them. Potentially an hour again. These babies are your friend.

And they are on their way. They are in full flower, and my biggest one is three inches long.