Yesterday Bert woke up crying because he wasn’t green enough. He went to nursery in a dinosaur costume, wore it there all day and sat in a shopping trolley wearing in it all the way round Sainsbury’s when I picked him up.

Today he rejected my choice of clothes in favour of the only all green/ non-dinosaur outfit he has – an emerald green polo shirt, bright green trousers and stripy green socks. His dad had to change into green shorts and a luminous green running top. Luckily they left the house before I was emotionally blackmailed into wearing a green tartan winter dress.

Sometimes I think life as an adult is stressful, but, to be fair, I can’t remember the last time I cried because I wasn’t green enough.

Should have served more than three

500g beef shin or other stewing steak, sliced

1 dessert spoon plain flour

1 red pepper, sliced thinly

1 inch fresh ginger, grated

4 cloves garlic, crushed

3/4 cup soy sauce

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup water

Toss the sliced beef in the flour in a casserole dish, add the remaining ingredients, bring to a fast simmer on the hob and then put in a slow oven (140 or the bottom of the Aga simmering oven) for 4-5 hours. The cups are the American measurements, not mugs, or there’d be about a week’s worth of sugar in there.

Because of the way the Aga cooks, I had to take it out and simmer it on the hob with the lid off for the last 25 minutes to reduce the sauce to the thick, sticky consistency it should have.

We had ours with plain rice in the garden by a campfire, with campfire bananas for pudding.