I am about to visit the vampire

or, in other words, the nurse who takes the blood samples. No, I do not think there is anything wrong - although I always wonder until I learn the results - this is just part of the annual check up.
It means no breakfast and that makes me feel very cross and scratchy. I need breakfast. I know there are people who manage, apparently quite happily, not to have breakfast but I need it. I can - just - manage without something to eat in the middle of the day but I cannot go without breakfast. I can, quite definitely, manage without food after about seven in the evening. I do not like eating meals, especially heavy meals, late into the evening. (It is probably just as well I do not get invited to elaborate evening "dinners" that go on until ten or eleven at night.)
But breakfast is different. I need some fuel for the day. It does not have to be a lot, porridge or cereal will do.
I growled at my GP about the "no breakfast" part and he admitted that he had not eaten breakfast as a student. I wondered how on earth he managed to get through medical school. He admitted that he was not sure but that he now recognised the value of breakfast.
And we expressed mutual concern at the rise of "breakfast" clubs in schools. When my mother was running her last school here in the city it was in a poor and very socially difficult area. Most children came to school without having eaten so breakfast was the first "lesson" of the day. It would be a bowl of cereal and a drink. I can remember my mother saying the teachers said it made a difference.
Now there are "breakfast" clubs in many schools. Apparently they are needed because, in families with two working parents, there is "no time" to give children breakfast. Many of these children also buy their lunch from the school "tuck shop". Tuck shops have tried to provide healthier food in recent years but it is still not home made food. It has to be more expensive.
It seems to be another expense that a two-parents-working family just seems ready to accept as inevitable.
This may be why some children do not seem to know very much about food. Oh, they know what they should eat. They know about "healthy" food. What many of them do not know about is how food is prepared and cooked.
I hope that the Whirlwind and her father enjoyed the salmon patties I showed her how to make yesterday. She believes she needs to know how to cook so as to "look after my Dad" and I am happy to help with the occasional lesson. I doubt I have any more time than a working parent but I make it because I believe it is important. Do parents who use breakfast clubs and allow their children to always buy their lunch think food is important? I suppose they must. They just do it differently.
I need breakfast - and I hope the blood test does not reveal the icecream I ate on Friday!