For once I find myself ahead of the game (in one tiny area anyway, never mind the ironing, cleaning, cooking...). My swap package for the kids cooking swap is ready to go to the Post Office in the morning.

The brief was for anything that would be helpful for kids cooking in the kitchen. Without giving too much away about my recipient family, here's a little apron I sewed up, modelled by my beautiful assistant Mark.

I haven't made an apron before so I thought I'd be all official and get a pattern. Holy cow - big mistake. I got one of those 'Sewing for Dummies' numbers, because I've never made anything with a pattern before and was looking for simple. Sadly I did not find it. Talk about making something complicated out of a straightforward job. I couldn't understand what on earth was going on, so I abandoned it and devised my own methods. I mean ... how hard does it have to be?

Perhaps it is me - I am congenitally unable to follow a recipe without meddling either. But the biggest difference is I can cook, not sure I am as confident about saying I can sew.

The boys were good as gold letting me get on with doing it. They were fully occupied perfecting their pigeon catching contraption. Yes, I know, it's a bucket. But it does have bird seed in and Johnny is calling enticingly "Pibin, kum n get oor bir sheee" which, as google translate will tell you, means "Pigeon, come and get your bird seed".