As one community paediatrician in London says: One issue is safety

As one community paediatrician in London says: “One issue is safety. I want a lot of people around when I am working, not just me and a receptionist. At present, it’s easier for me to provide a good service between 9am and 5pm when the back-up services are available. Yet parents are often unaware of other options.Immunisations are provided by GPs and by child health clinics. All families with a child under five have a health visitor, who can give information on all local clinics. “My GP practice will only do vaccinations between 2pm and 3pm on a Tuesday.

While my manager understands that I might need to be off for emergencies, she can’t easily arrange for me to be off for odd half-days.”
Much child health provision is designed for the mother at home with young children or perhaps at primary school. For her, early afternoon or 10am clinics may be ideal, but for working parents these are the least convenient times. Jane, a retail supervisor, resents the difficulties she encountered in getting her child’s MMA (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination. Apart from expanding his collection of tins, to which sardine fans around the world send contributions, he is researching more into one aspect of the fish.”The sardine,” he states with just a hint of a smile, “has many sexual connotations. Sardine in French is, for example, an obscure slang word for the penis.”Musee Imaginaire de la Sardine, 2 rue Alsace Lorraine, Sete (00 33 467 74 91 75) Open daily from 10am Adults 10F, children free.. And, we are told, the sardine tin is a popular way of smuggling hashish out of Morocco; the little blocks the drug is sold in fit neatly into the rectangular can.Alan Bennett noted that in any sardine tin there is “always a little bit in the corner you can’t get out.” Is that true for Anginot? His quest, he replies earnestly, is far from over. Matching your child’s health care needs with office life doesn’t have to be a nightmare, says Jackie Cassell

Time off due to a child’s illness and other emergencies is an occupational hazard for the working parent.

But “flexible workforce” arrangements for health care needs can be a major headache. Fifty years later the famous key was invented, and this held sway until the recently introduced pull-up ring.The exhibition throws up other fascinating snippets: Christopher Columbus, we are informed, had 650 barrels of sardines aboard the ships that brought him to America. A score of display panels provides key data on the world of the small silvery fish: the economics of sardine fishing; the price of the fish through history; fishing methods; the trawlers, and the best ways of cooking and eating sardines.We learn that it was a Frenchman, Pierre-Joseph Colin, who invented the sardine tin around 1820. The not-particularly-user-friendly way to get at the contents of the original tin was to bash it open with a hammer and chisel. The aim of the museum that he founded, at the age of 40, is to pass on the joy of these discoveries, he says.The museum itself is very small, and more like a competent school project than a proper exhibition. Now, though, the first strawberries of the season are starting to edge their way in. Get stuck into a punnet before the demand from Wimbledon fortnight puts pressure on prices.Smokers can stock up on cigarettes at duty-free prices.Be sure to check your change before you check in for the flight home.

Jersey issues its own notes and coins, which are hard to shift on the mainland.Must eatStrawberries apart, Jersey’s main gastronomic attraction is seafood, and the best place to survey the range on offer is close to the water in St Helier.Night movesYou remember Southampton? It has rather more night-life than you’ll find anywhere in the Channel Islands. After a few hours spent pondering the fish in its abstract beauty, the enthusiast can amble down to the quay to observe the reality of the 5pm criee, or auction, when the trawlers arrive back from a day’s fishing.Anginot’s interest in sardines began with the can. As a teenager he liked the design so much that he stuck a tin on his kitchen wall Another was soon placed alongside. By the time he was 18, he had as large a collection as his tolerant mother would permit. He began to read about sardines and found that much of what he was learning made him laugh.

The visitor to this tiny exhibition space in the town’s former public baths is regaled with details of the economic, cultural and culinary history of the sardine.Sete, France’s biggest sardine-fishing port, is a particularly apt location. “Producing a can at a Parisian dinner party was guaranteed to shift your social standing up a notch or two. Today, sardines are seen as a poor man’s dish.”So he has dedicated his life to improving their status, and last year opened what he believes to be the first sardine museum in Europe. But optimists who are in search of a cheery, noisy pub should head for the Tipsy Toad in the hamlet of St Peter.