There’s a fine line when eating out with children between them being adorable and deranged in the public’s eye. You have to decide either to eat in an establishment where children are welcomed and put up with incessant screams from all corners of the eatery or the location with nice enough food, some tolerance of your offspring and inevitable eventual humiliation. You decide.

Oh to digest a meal. This week we managed to escape the work of the farm for a few days break in our nation’s capital, Dublin. Traveling with young children, you sign up for highlights and lowlights wrapped up in a package. Go at their pace, don’t try to entertain them by too much effort and make an effort to enjoy it yourself. Easier said than done. We were kind enough to ourselves not to put the family through the absolute torture of going through an airport. No matter how organized I find myself on such an event, it inevitably turns to dragging and cajoling children in some obscure spot of anonymous airport. Not for wild horses or Brosnans. But I digress.

So after a week of alternating between shouty-screamy and semi sophisticated restaurants that say that they are child friendly but hey who are they fooling, we found ourselves eating our last holiday supper in a pub off the motorway on the way home. The facts were such, we were tired, hungry and generally in need of some TLC. A tall order for any restaurant you might say.

Three little Kerry boys, aw, how adorable. Look at them colouring. The baby is so sweet, ash blond hair. Do they all have matching blue eyes? Aw. Look at how they’re eating their rice and devouring those sausages. Oh they must be hot. A delay meanwhile in bringing the food for the cranky parents (well actually the mother), coloring pencils, a capital idea. Could the baby get lead poisoning eating that one? Eat up your veg, and yours and yours. Still no meal for the parents.

There’s a window here people, it’s a ticking time bomb, timing, it’s all about timing. You want your icecream, not until you finish your dinner, and yours and yours. Parental dinner arrives. What about icecream? I’ll order some. The toilet, ok? You eat, I’ll bring this one. Don’t spill that glass. I’ll get the waitress. Why didn’t you say you wanted to go to the toilet when I was bringing him? No, no, you eat. Mind the baby. Not so adorable now. Another spill. The gentleman in the next table who has been cooing at the baby, decides to help up the cleaning with a bundle of napkins, don’t stand on the man’s fingers, say sorry. I feel like we’re in a glass tank with the owner over feeding us. Just leave us alone to feed these people so that we can get on the motorway and try to put them asleep and drive through the rain, awake whilst driving people. Just bring the billllllllllllllll.

Thank you so much, we really enjoyed our meal.