"You should have children", said Ava-Jo to me last night after our Carol Service.
Ava-Jo entering into conversation with an adult is pretty amazing. She is slightly autistic, and sometimes finds it hard to talk to people.

"Really, why?" I asked.
"Dunno - you just should. Is he [pointing to THE BOY] your husband?"
"No" ( I said, thinking- ha ha ha ha ha). "He's my boyfriend."
"Are you her boyfriend? You should marry her and have children," Ava-Jo said, as if that cleared up the matter.
"OK" said THE BOY.
Well, hardly a proposal. THE BOY would not let me make an announcement to the room.
anyway, back to Ava-Jo.
"My brother gets on my nerves"
"So does my boyfriend."
Her eyes widened as wide as a 10-year old's eyes can. Which is pretty wide.
"She said you get on her nerves."
"She gets on my nerves too."
It was then that any parenting skills the poor child thought I might have exhibited failed me completely.
"THE BOY gets on my nerves so much I have no nerves left. [note to self: stop there in future] In fact, he now just gets on the nerve endings and dances around on them because there are no nerves left in my body."

The dark cloud of complete and utter incomprehension, coupled with perhaps a sudden onslaught of total boredom, descended across her face. Without saying a word, she turned on her heel and walked off as quick as she could.

"Perhaps she only exhibits signs of autism when you try to tell jokes", THE BOY commented.

I turned on my heel and strolled off nonchalantly towards the mince pies. At least they were an attentive audience.