Berries a recipe for success

If your GCSE results were what you’d hoped for then you’ll never forget the moment you opened the envelope and saw fireworks. It really is a special moment in your life, so I hear.

If they weren’t, then don’t sweat it. It really isn’t the end of the world, although it feels like it at the time when people around you, who’ve done well, are whooping while all you want to do is cry and be sick. That feeling I do know.

Revision is like training for a half marathon, like the boss, who’s doing the Great North Run next weekend. Put the miles in beforehand and, barring a catastrophe on the day, everything should be okay.

Daughter #2 spent what seemed like three years in her room revising for the 20-plus papers she sat over four gruelling weeks. And it turns out she wasn’t watching Netflix after all.

Seeing how you’ve been with us, reading this weekly stream of consciousness since the day she started school in 2006, I’ll tell you how she got on.

In new money: two 9s; three 7s; two 6s and two 5s. In old money (before the Government farted around with the grading system) that’s two A**s, three As, two high Bs and two solid Bs.

Anyway, her grades were good enough to get her to the next stop, LIPA Sixth Form in Liverpool to train to be an actress. Some might say her success was down to her hard work and intelligence. That’s a big part of it, but it’s also down to the exam breakfasts knocked up every morning by yours truly.

When you’re sick with nerves and your stomach’s whirring like a washing machine, the last thing you want is food.

But she picked her way through a bowl of berries and sipped a glass of apple juice every day.

The only worry with chowing down all those berries was a re-run of Will out of The Inbetweeners’ unfortunate incident in the exam hall after necking too many energy drinks, when he discovered that the colour of adrenaline is brown.

Thankfully, we had none of that. If daughter #2 was c****ing herself, then it was metaphorically, not literally.