Timmy the class bearBB came home from nursery armed with a new friend this week: Timothy the class bear. He comes complete with a (daunting) looking diary in which we’re supposed to catalogue his stay at our house for the benefit of the other children, preferably with pictures.

After reading the previous entry I quickly realised it’s not the other children we’ve got to impress worry about. It’s the parents. According to a story in one of the newspapers this week ‘class wars’ and ‘social divide’ have been sparked by take-home teddies such as Timmy, prompting pushy parents to snap into ‘competitive, aggressive survival mode’.

Crikey. Mums featured in the story unwittingly discovered the class bear had been living the high life in Greece and Hawaii and even climbed Mount Everest, while others were pictured lying on sun loungers and in sports cars. Gulp. Where’s my Apache-pilot brother when you need him? Timmy behind the controls of a helicopter would score extra brownie points, surely.

Thankfully we are only the second family to host BB’s Timmy, so there wasn’t much to go on by way of previous entries. So far the high point of Timmy’s stay at our house has been a trip to Tumble Tots in our local church hall (pictured), followed by apple juice at the coffee shop.

Of course I ought to leave it at that, setting the bar low for the other poor mums and dads. But the thing is, we’re off to Portugal for a week tomorrow. And I simply can’t resist…