Let’s do this together

I could break every bone in my body and be bandaged head-to-toe and stuck in a wheelchair, and The Dark Lord would still whine at me: “What’s for dinner?”

I have had enough of being a kitchen skivvy – I’ve hung up my apron and gone on cooking strike.

The main problem is not making an evening meal, which I’ve done over 5,000 times for TDL since she was born, but the fact that I’m being railroaded into cooking and eating too early.

Already an annoying picky eater, TDL is now a supremely irritating picky-eater-teenage-girl-on-a-diet and is demanding dinner is served at 6pm – or she’ll faint from hunger.

“Well you’ll have to faint because I’m not eating at toddler time,” I told her, after the fourth day of being nagged by the teenage dentist drill to start preparing a meal way before I’m ready to eat.

“If you’re hungry, have a healthy snack – an orange or a sodding cracker – I honestly don’t care, but I am not cooking two meals at night. There will be one sitting – at 7.30pm.”

Thing is, I like to listen to The Archers while I’m cooking, and if I start too early, I’ll miss all the gripping stories. I realise some people think the radio show is all country folk worrying about a runaway bull, and I admit that did go on for several weeks, but we’ve had abuse and coercive control story lines, and this week Kenton is struggling to sit down after being attacked by dogs.

I’m simply not going to be deprived of my daily drama just because the teenager wants to look good in bootcut jeans.

“Right, fine, I’m going to cook my own dinner every night,” she threatened.

So far her menu this week has been spaghetti with cheese, cheese with spaghetti and cheese on toast.

I’m not even going to worry about her getting her five-a-day – that’s above my pay grade now and I’m not breaking my own strike. All out, comrades.

■ Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.

Please note, if you send us photos of your grandchildren, we’ll also need permission of one of their parents to print them... Thanks! “Our lovely Minnie’s special talent is sprinting up and down stairs like a rocket cat – especially at 4am!” writes Liz Green in Redcar, North Yorkshire.

The Green family got Minnie three years ago from Cats Protection. “Minnie is very inquisitive and likes to investigate anything new in the house,” says Liz. “And after all that rocketing around, she likes to snooze in the wardrobe.”

■ Send your paw-traits in to me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk