Kara has always been a girl in a hurry. She rapidly bypassed the play-kitchen phase in favour of getting involved in real cooking.

But when she concocted this particular potion while we were at Camp Bestival last month, I have to admit I wasn’t in a hurry to sample it. In fact, I was reminded of some familiar lines from Macbeth as I pondered whether all those times I have described her as ‘a little witch’ in her more troublesome moments might have had more than a ring of truth to them.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Come to think of it, I’d probably have been safer with the witches’ brew. Or with the mud pies that she and Toby subsequently went off to make.

And this is why I was happy to be in charge of breakfasts – bacon and sausage rolls cooked on our little gas stove – while we were camping. If anyone’s going to poison me, I’d much rather it was me doing it to myself …

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