It amazes me how wan smol boy (one small boy, surprisingly, in Bislama) can eat so much. Given time at the weekend he'll devour two eggs and soldiers, 2 toast and jam, a grapefruit, stripped off every fleshly part and most of the pith too, and still ask "what's for pudding?"

When we were in Vanuatu he insisted on eating porridge for breakfast, every day in 35 degree heat. They don't have oats over there so we had to buy prohibitively expensive imported ones from the french supermarket, they were about £5 a box. Once we opened them only to find the oats crawling with maggots. We took the box back and the shop assistant opened several more boxes to find more of the same.

Did Bob ask himself straightforward questions like "why do I insist on eating hot meals for breakfast when it is far too hot and very illogical to persist in doing so?"? No, he did not. Instead he asked us unanswerable things like,

"Why do mangos have a large flat stone and not a small round one?" (Because they do).

Mangos became Bob's staple food over there - even usurped the porridge. 10 for a penny and tasty at that. Unfortunately, now that we're back in the UK where we don't grow mangos, he costs us the earth... again. At least oats are cheaper though, even if the questions are just as hard...

"Mummy, are oats the same as wheat?"

"No, they are different. Different plants, different cereals."

"Why?"