FOR some reason I got really, really excited when I read that the Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian once a week.

A lovely picture of a man sailing a giant aubergine across Ghent harbour advertises the new campaign.

When did Belgium go from being the world’s most boring country, to the place I’d most like to visit?

As soon as I mentioned the boringness of Belgium in the office I was shouted down by colleagues who started telling me things they love about the place.

One was instantly aroused by the memory of an ex-girlfriend’s handmade lacy knickers from Belgium and another said that this year’s Eurovision song contest entry from the country is an Elvis impersonator.

Another brightened up with the memory of a drunken weekend in Belgium with 100 firemen.

But back to vegetarianism… starting today, Ghents 5,000 Elvis-impersonating civil servants and lace knicker-wearing elected politicians have agreed to eat only vegetarian meals.

Schoolchildren will follow suit with their own ‘veggiedag’ every Thursday from September. It is hoped the move will cut Ghent’s environmental footprint and help tackle obesity.

Now I’m not quite sure why this all excites me so much. As a vegetarian for 25 years it really, really, really doesn’t bother me whether other people eat meat or not.

I mind a bit when they apologise for eating meat in front of me (why would I care — it’s not as if its one of my relatives or pets they’re tucking into?)

I do mind if people put raw meat in my fridge though. I just don’t like the smell. I’m OK about sweeping up the blood and guts which the cat brings into the kitchen most mornings, but he has the good grace not to put it in the fridge.

And it does upset me a bit that people make assumptions and wrongly categorise all vegetarians as radical, animal activist, health freaks.

Obviously I care about global warming and world poverty, but I don’t think it’s my job to convert anybody else.

Maybe it’s purely selfish, because it means that at long last there will be at least one European city I can go to on holiday and not have to survive on wine, cheese and bread for the entire week.

While I was in Spain last year I went into one tapas restaurant where every single thing on the menu had fish and meat in it somewhere. I told the waiter not to worry, I’d just have wine and olives for my dinner. But when he brought out the olives I realised that they were stuffed with anchovies too. He was so embarrassed that he ran down the road to ask for a dish of olives from a friend.

But now Ghent is leading the way. It is one of 370 European Climate Cities, and apparently they may all join in the meat-free day.

The participating cities are going to get cafes and restaurants to provide at least three veggie choices on the menu. I know that might not sound very exciting to the rest of you, but it will be lovely for me to be able to go into a restaurant and be able to do the whole ‘Mmm, let’s see, what shall I choose?’ thing, rather than …’I'll have the veggie option’.

But I don’t think it’s all going to be plain sailing. I looked on Ghent’s website and there are only seven veggie restaurants in the whole city. They’re going to be packed on a Thursday.

And I’m hoping that the city’s school dinner ladies are better at veggie cooking than the ones in this country. All three of my children have tried school dinners at one stage or another — mostly because I get so fed up making packed lunches.

A whole generation of little Belgians could be put off vegetarianism for good unless they teach their school cooks how to make tasty meatless dishes.

While on the subject of Belgium, my son was convinced in his first year at school that Jesus’ mum was called the Belgian Mary (he used to have a bit of a hearing problem).

He was only about five at the time and no matter how much his sisters and I insisted, he was still sure that he was right and that the Madonna was really called the Belgian Mary.

I remember getting into a very long discussion in which I tried to explain what a Belgian was. And then another one where I tried to tell him, without going into too much detail, what a virgin was.

I realised that I had failed when he looked at me and said: “Does that mean you’re a virgin mummy?”

That was about two years ago, and when I asked him about the Belgian Mary this morning it was clear he still doesn’t know what the joke is.

Today he asked me if a virgin is a type of religion.

The problem is that he’s now as confused about religion as he is about sex and, what with me talking about virgins and Jesus’ mum in the same sentence, he has now truly mixed the whole thing up.

The religion thing got confused when he was set a piece of homework where he had to ask friends and neighbours about their jobs, and what religion they are.

Unfortunately that weekend we had an odd assortment of visitors, and none of them could answer in black and white terms — or in any way that made any sense at all to an eight-year-old — about their religious beliefs.

I do feel very, very sorry for the poor child living in our nuthouse.

AFTER reading Stephen Fry’s letter to his 16-year-old self, I thought I’d have a go and write a ‘Dear Me’ circa 1975.

But I’ve come to the conclusion it would be largely a waste of time, mostly because in some ways I was wiser and more together at 16 than I am now.

Unlike me, Fry has the benefit of much wit and wisdom. And his subject matter is important, historical social comment on the development of gay pride, written to his terrified teenaged self, agonising over the pain of coming out in the horribly homophobic early-70s.

But after hours of thinking (without the aid of Fry’s enormous brain) the best I came up with was a hackneyed ‘Put your life’s savings on L’Escargot in the Grand National’.

Then I remembered that I would have been too young to bet and I had no life’s savings, because in the summer of 1975 I blew my wages from waitressing at the Corbyn Head Hotel on clothes in Pink and Blue and Come West (boutiques, both demolished to build Fleet Walk).

I’d finished O-levels and left my all-girls school and was off to ‘the Tech’ (South Devon Technical College, as it was then) to do A-levels.

My one concern that summer was ‘What am I going to wear on the first day of term?’. I couldn’t get a pair of jeans to fit my ample ass.

Now I know, at 50, looking back, that I was perfectly beautiful, as all 16-year-old girls are. And I have come to realise after decades of angst, that boys love nothing more than a curvy bum.

And I could write to my sweet sixteen-year-old self about learning to love and appreciate myself as I am and not wishing my youth away.

But I now have teenage daughters of my own and I know, from talking until I’m blue in the face, that words don’t make any difference. I spend my life telling them how perfectly beautiful they are, and they don’t believe me.

Teenage girls look in the mirror and seek out the one tiny imperfection and concentrate on whatever is wrong, not what’s right.

So my words of wisdom to myself, aged sweet sixteen, would be: ‘Tough. You’re going to have to wait another decade or so for the invention of girl-fit, designer jeans.’

It’s the reason my generation of women spent our teens, 20s and early 30s looking in changing room mirrors asking ‘Does my bum look big in this?’

Girls today have no idea how lucky they are.

Back in the mid-70s jeans were not ‘designed’. They were Levi’s or Wranglers and made for cowboys, not women with child-bearing hips. Some girls looked great in them. Those girls all had long legs, long blonde hair and an Ambre Solaire suntan so dark you’d never guess sun showers and fake tan hadn’t been invented yet.

I wasn’t one of those girls. I had big hips and a small waist and jeans just looked silly. This may all sound trivial to you, but it made my life a misery.

If you were a teenager in the 70s you had to wear jeans. There were no alternatives. The Tech was a sea of blue denim legs.

My answer then (and I’m not sure I can come up with a better one now, without interfering dangerously with the space time continuum thingy) was to find a pair two sizes too small. As long as I could get them over my knees in the dressing room, I made them fit. You had to lie on the floor and take a friend along to help do up the zip.

It wasn’t vanity. They didn’t make your bum look smaller or nicer, they just flattened it in the wrong places. And the reason girls looked as if we were slouching in our chairs was that we had to keep our bodies straight at all times. It was impossible to bend in the middle, even sitting down. Apart from anything else, it played havoc with my bowels. My descending colon was paralysed from 1975 until 1978.

Better advice would have been: ‘Colleen. Stay at the convent school and wear the ugly, comfy pleated skirts for another two years, concentrate on your studies. You’ll definitely get better A-level results.’

But would I have listened? I’m not sure. I was a teenager and I did what all teenagers do. I followed the crowd.

I liked the convent. I liked my teachers. I had a free scholarship, so my parents didn’t mind either way. And I didn’t really mind the uniform (at least in the sixth form we wouldn’t have to wear the ridiculous hats and gloves. Grey felt hats and brown leather gloves in winter. White panamas and white cotton gloves in summer. Yippee).

But my best friend was more of a rebel. Her big brother was a biker and she had a small bum and big boobs and looked great in jeans and a leather jacket. The last I heard she was still biking her way around Australia in her late 40s.

And at 16 my best friend was the most important thing in my life. If she was leaving to go to college. So was I.

We did everything together. We worked at the Corbyn Head, and the following year we got a summer job at The Grand. And I was on a night out with her when I met my husband to be.

I could write a letter to myself saying: ‘Stay away from that idiot boy playing pool at Mr Matt’s nightclub in Walnut Road in 1976.’ But if I’d listened, I wouldn’t have my three lovely children.

So here is the sum total of my lifetime’s experience: ‘Dear Me. Whatever. Everything’s fine in the end. You’ll have great kids. Love your bum.’

It’s turning into one of those ‘the sky is falling down’ kind of weeks.

I’m not sure if it’s just me and Chicken Licken, or if everybody gets overtaken by the same feeling of doom every now and again. It feels as if everything in your house is breaking down at the same time and you’ll never be able to sort it all out.

It started with me temporarily losing £400, and ended with my daughter pouring a litre of orange juice into her nearly new, beautiful Macbook.

Sadly I cannot tell you exactly what happened to the laptop. My daughter made me promise. She was so ashamed and upset by the depths of her own stupidity that it was several days before she could bring herself to speak about it, even to me. She has not told any of her friends and only told me on condition I tell no-one else. And the effort of keeping a funny story secret is nearly killing me. It goes against all my journalistic instincts.

All I can say is that we are not talking about a bit of a spillage, but the whole carton, upside down. The screen and keyboard were totally awash and the damage is irreparable.

The worst thing was that her dad — who gave her the Macbook to do her A-level coursework — was abroad on holiday when it happened. She had to wait 10 excruciating days to face him, own up and find out if he’d bought extra cover insurance for it. In the meantime, the prophets of doom kept telling her that you can’t insure mobiles and computers against spills.

On one hand I felt sorry for her obvious distress, and tried to reassure her that it would be OK. But on the other I was quite glad that she’d had to stew and think for a while.

Thankfully, her dad got back from holiday last night and is confident the damage will be covered.

And she is full of remorse and has made all sorts of promises about never, ever again, allowing liquids and computers into the same room. I think she’s learned a valuable life lesson.

It reminded me of one of a teenage issue encountered by one of my many cousins (have I ever told you that I’ve got 45 cousins on my mother’s side alone? My mum’s Irish, and one of 10, and all her siblings had big families, with the exception of one, who was widowed at an early age).

This particular cousin lived in one of those upside-down houses, with one bedroom down on the ground level. Which was fine, until her son, who slept in the downstairs room, grew into a teenager.

Suddenly, he and his friends were coming and going at all times. And no matter how many times they were told to lock the front door, it was frequently left unlocked all night.

Afraid that they would all be burgled, killed in their beds, or worse… my cousin and her husband came up with a cunning plan to teach their son a lesson.

While he was out one day, they staged a fake burglary and stripped his room of all valuables — guitar, stereo, computer. I’m not sure if they bothered pretending to mess it up because, being a teenager, he wouldn’t have been able to spot the difference. It probably looked tidier once they’d removed his stuff.

Anyway, they went to great lengths and hid everything in a friend’s garage and told their son that they’d informed the police, who’d said there was nothing they could do and that nothing was insured because the front door had been left unlocked…

He fell for it. And they kept up the charade for a couple of weeks, until they were sure that he’d finally accepted responsibility and started locking the door every night.

Anyway, enough about teenagers and their stupidity. They have excuses. Hormones and developing frontal cortexes. And coursework, exams, and too much alcohol and worries about university.

And now on to me, and my stupidity, and my hormones and my shrinking, ageing 50-year-old, pre-senile brain. And homework, housework, work work, too much alcohol and worries about university fees.

On Monday night I got home from work at the Herald and was cooking tea (when I say cooking, I mean putting a pizza in the oven) while two children were doing their homework in the kitchen and asking me for advice.

I was fine with the A-level English.

But my youngest son’s year four maths was beyond me. The mini-beasts were having a five-a-side football match. There were six-legged beetles, spiders with eight legs, centipedes and some other 40-legged creature. How many boots were involved, including substitutes, after a gang of lizards and an angry referee had devoured some of the players?

By this time my daughter had moved on from coursework to filling in a financial assistance application form for university.

I’d been speaking to a friend whose husband is something big in the city. She doesn’t work and has only one teenager. She was bemoaning the fact that she’s injured her leg and can’t play tennis at the moment. When I asked if she gets bored, she said that no, she had lots to do, sorting out her daughter’s university application.

I wasn’t sure whether to feel jealous or guilty. My daughter’s done it all by herself. Apart from a few long chats, and driving her to have a look at a couple of campuses, I’m afraid she’s been on her own.

So I should have been happy to be helpful when she was trying to fill in the form. But it was all too much — what with the referee eating three beetles’ legs (that’s minus 18 pairs of boots) and all. I was hungry and tired and all I wanted was to eat my pizza in peace, and listen to The Archers (Brian’s been at it again), and have a nice cup of tea.

Plus I was fed up with online applications. That’s how I lost £400. Temporarily.

I was wondering why I was suddenly so hard up at the end of last month. I thought it was the double birthday celebration.

But actually, I’ve just discovered, I’ve accidentally bought two tickets for Glastonbury. Which is good news, really.

I’ve never been to Glastonbury and so I’d registered, and sent off my passport photo, which everybody had to do this year before applying for tickets. But then I’d missed out on getting around to buy a ticket and they were all sold out.

Then, at the beginning of April, I had an email to say that a few last tickets were available online one Sunday morning at 9am. I tried. But I didn’t know that Michael Eavis only takes debit cards, not credit cards, and I was swearing at the computer and not understanding what the problem was.

Eventually the computer crashed and I gave up.

So it wasn’t until this week’s bank statement arrived that I saw the card payment was successful and realised where all my money had gone.

I was about to say I must get some new wellies, but writing this column has been therapeutic and my dark cloud of Chicken Licken gloom has drifted away… it’s going to be the sunniest Glastonbury ever.

The Herald Express story about Brixham butler Gary Lindley, who asked a court to remove his electronic tag and curfew so that he could go to work at Lady Arran’s Devon castle, has been all around the world since we first published it earlier this week.

Lady Arran said Gary makes the best scrambled eggs and it has sparked a huge online debate in The Guardian about how to get your eggs soft and fluffy (or rich and creamy, depending on your preference).

This morning there were 56 different suggestions (with a few people deviating into the area of black magic and witchcraft which is needed to get a perfectly poached egg).

My favourite recipe comes from online contributor GenghisKong, who says he eats this every morning, and it makes him a happy man. I think he may drop dead of a heart attack if he really eats that much cholesterol daily, but at least he’s happy.

Genghis’ scrambled eggs:

finely chop a couple of spring onions

thoroughly beat together three to four eggs with a glug of milk and plenty of black pepper

soften a knob of butter (as large as you like) in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan and briefly fry the spring onions over a medium heat

reduce the heat to very low and add the eggs, stir constantly over as low a heat as you have the patience for

when the eggs are nearly done (starting to thicken, but still slightly liquid) put a thick slice of bread in the toaster

butter the toast generously

eggs should be about done by now. Take them off the heat and add a pinch of salt and some fresh thyme.

give them one last stir and pour them over the toast

devour, but don’t think about the butter, calories or cholesterol.

It would be nice to know how Gary cooks his.