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Prole1 was in the St Piran’s day parade today.

St Piran’s day is the fifth of March but the parade happens on the nearest Saturday.

This means it coincided with St David’s day today so there were lots of Welsh flags out as well.

The Proles have Cornish flags, with the cross of St Piran.

Prole1 put his uniform on and walked us down to the meeting point at the school.
He signed in, was mildly indignant that my actual, physical signature was needed to release him, bought a flower to wear and sorted out where I should meet him after the parade.
He then stood with his friends.

Taking this as a sign that we were no longer needed, me and Prole2 went for a bun.
I could see from outside the bakery there was a queue nearl to the door as the town was busy with everyone waiting for the parade.
I ended up some way back, just inside the door.
Inside the bakery is a sloping glass counter so you can see all the cakes.
Prole2 went down to the front of the queue to see what he wanted.

When I finally got to the front of the queue I found him leaning full length on the counter front, arms wide, face pressed to the glass, gazing at the  cakes and buns.
I peeled him off and made a quick apology to the staff. There was a big steamy mark on the glass were his mouth and nose had been.
They sort of smiled at me. Sort of.

Smiling server: Can I help you?

Me: What do you want?

Prole2: What can I have?

Me: You can have a cake.

Prole2: What cake?

Me: Which cake do you want?

Prole2: Can I have one of those cones?

He pointed to an ice cream cone full of marshmallow and topped with lurid Hundreds and Thousands.

Me: No.

Prole2: Why not?

I have to say there is a gap in my well thought out map of the bakery product world and the real blank spot is the ice cream cone full of marshmallow and topped with lurid Hundreds and Thousands.

In my opinion the pre made nature of the ice cream cone makes a mockery of being in a bakery.
The mulchy goo of the marshmallow is not as good as the marshmallows I can get from the sweet shop where I can buy a bag full for the same price.
Who eats those things?
They always have at least twenty in there whenever I go in.
They serve only to trigger a sugar rush that kicks in just as you realise you bought the wrong thing from the bakery.
As far as I can make out the ice cream cone full of marshmallow and topped with lurid Hundreds and Thousands does not fill you up and in my experience is sort of sweet while being sort of tasteless and sort of stale.

I suppose it also comes from NEVER being allowed them when I was little, which made them the most exotic things I could imagine so when I was finally allowed into town on m own I went and bought one and was devastatingly disappointed.

Clearly I am mildly worried about creating such a situation in my own children.

Clearly not worried enough to actually buy them one of those things.

Me: Because.

Prole2: Because what?

Me: Because it’s my money and the whole point of this is to get you something more wholesome than that.

Prole2: Can I have that?

Me: Umm…yes…Excuse me, can my son have a Rhubarb and custard dough nut…um…the one with the pink sugar on top please.

Smiling server: Anything else?

I may as well follow him on the wholesome route.

Me: I’ll have one too.

I felt a bit guilty about the ice cream cone full of marshmallow and topped with lurid Hundreds and Thousands but Prole2 was utterly blown away by his doughnut.

Prole2 (In a whisper of awe): It’s got…custard…on the inside…

Which was in direct contrast to him who had a large amount of custard on the outside.

No wet wipes today so I tried and gave up cleaning him up.
I came back from putting the wrappers in the bin to find him licking his coat.
At various points in the day I could see him do this when he thought I was not looking.

Prole1 came marching up the road, eyes bright and a spring in his step.
When the parade had looped round and come back to a stop by the monument we tried to get near him in the crowd.

I saw his head go back, he raised one hand in the air and shouted.

Prole1: Oggy! Oggy! Oggy!

To which the whole crowd of people around him said absolutely nothing at all.

I stayed where I was, partly because I did not want him to see us watching him in his embarrassment, partly because I did not want any one else to see us with him.

Later I collected him from the Head teacher who remarked on what a character he was and how loud he could be in assembly.
I think this is a good thing but you never know really do you?

I smiled, she smiled and Prole1 nervously smacked me in the head with his flag.

Prole2 licked his coat.