PLEASE Sir, said Oliver, can I have some more?

Never a truer word, quite frankly.

You expect expense when you have children. First it's the cots, the clothes and the car seats.

Then the pester power. In my house, any advert on the TV is usually accompanied by the piping up of a little voice. 'I want one of those.'

I'm sure you do is the typical response but, yes, sometimes I'm worn down.

Later, I'm told, it's activities and trips and lifts hither and thither. Not just for them but all of their friends.

The bank of mum and dad I believe they call the phenomenon whereby your hard-earned cash dribbles - nay, gushes - unstoppably through your fingers.

But you know all this. It's well documented and, if you didn't listen, then obviously you only have yourself to blame.

But at no point, certainly in my experience anyway, do veteran parents think to warn you about the food.

The mountains of food.

You see, the children are hungry. Constantly.

To be fair, they do give you a little respite for, perhaps, the first year or so.

During this time you fight valiantly to get them to eat anything at all. They react with insulting suspicion to almost any food you present, saving their most disgusted faces for the meals you have spent most time preparing.

Weeping silently as you sweep your home-cooked fare off the floor, you simply can't understand how there is more down here than there was on the original plate.

But that time passes and, at some point, I'm not entirely sure when, you realise that your food bills are literally sky-rocketing.

The children will eat breakfast, lunch and tea, along with the snacks they have demanded after every activity, and still greet bedtime with the words, 'I'm still hungry. What can I have?'

And did I mention the second lunch? That's the one they have after coming home from school or nursery where, apparently, they've already had a hot dinner.

You might wonder if they've got worms but, with a lack of any actual evidence and not much inclination to examine too closely, you have to assume they are just growing. Fast and furiously.

And I'm googling, just as fast and furiously, something, anything to cook that might fill them up.

For at least half an hour.