Taking the Rap

There’s nothing like a nice picnic in the park on a sunny day...

Unless that is, you’ve just spent an inordinate amount of time unpacking food, blankets and children only to find yourself cosily ensconced between a school trip and a family of ASBOs.

So there we were, Finn trying to gorge himself on grass and serviettes and Jess rifling through the bag for anything that contained EU regulation-defying sugar quantities – all pretty normal so far.

Then the impromptu hip hop gig began, as the bare-chested Vanilla Ice impresario started trying to rap along to Snoop Dogg. Can you rap out of tune? I’d never really considered it until my ears were tortured by his excruciatingly bad karaoke. His girlfriend seemed suitably impressed and I tried to distract Jess from the more colourful language:

‘What does muthaf**** mean mummy?’, is not the type of question I envisioned having to answer just yet.

He continued assaulting our eardrums as a seemingly never-ending line of school children returned from the kiosk with ice creams. They all sat down close enough to provide the ultimate in toddler torture – watching someone else eat ice cream when you’re not allowed one.

It was definitely time to go home: just the one final hurdle of squeezing past a mum and her toddler. It was a bit tricky as the pavement was narrow and she was slurping from a can of Stella while her two Staffies strained on their leads. I tell you what though – transfer that Stella to an ice-cold pint glass and put it on a table in a beer garden and I’d be there!