Playgroups and Prosecco

by Jo Middleton

  ‘There seems to have been a problem,’ said the robot, ‘please press one to return to the main menu.’

  Talk about a modern parable. That’s the story of my life right there.

  Job-hunting was a washout. All of the retail jobs are full of students back for the summer and, according to the recruitment agencies, the summer holidays are not really the ideal time to look for a new job. Had I thought of postponing the move until later in the year, they asked? Bit late for that now. Most of the vacancies seemed to be either in call centres or driving HGVs.

  (Question: I wonder if you could earn double the money by answering calls remotely on a headset while driving a lorry?)

  Wednesday 25 July

  Last day of term today and I feel a weird kind of tiredness.

  On the one hand I’m looking forward to not having to make packed lunches and rush around in the morning getting everyone ready. The last few weeks have been like a three-legged race where the person you’ve got your ankle tied to has sort of given up, and you’re having to do most of the work, dragging them over the finish line.

  But then, at the same time, I feel exhausted in anticipation of six weeks of summer holidays. Six weeks of trying to balance the needs of two children who seem insistent on sleeping at completely opposite times of the day. Six weeks of ‘I’m bored’ and ‘I’m hot’ and ‘I don’t want to go to bed’.

  In town at lunchtime I saw not just one but two open-top buses full of Year Sixes from a local primary school. The top decks were each full of ten- and eleven-year-olds, shouting and waving at people in the street. Each group had a couple of terrified-looking teachers standing in the middle.

  Now, I don’t want to be a Scrooge about it, because I know that finishing primary school is a big deal when you’re young, but it’s hardly winning the World Cup, is it? When I left primary school we just had a big assembly where the head looked over his glasses and gave us a lecture about doing our best. Even when Flo left a few years ago it wasn’t that much of a thing. One of the teaching assistants brought in a job lot of Calipos, and they each got a class photo, rolled up like a scroll. Then everyone said goodbye and went home.

  As much as I want my kids to feel like they’re special, they’re not that special.

  Tonight was meant to be child-free for me, but Mamma Mia 2 has just come out and Ian said he was going to take the girls to see it. Jess has never been to the cinema before and so, when he asked if I wanted to come along as well, I came over all nostalgic and agreed. It didn’t start until 6.15 so he gave them tea at home and then came to pick me up.

  I was sitting on the front step, waiting for them, but Ian came up the path carrying a large cardboard box.

  ‘The girls are in the car,’ he said, ‘but I just wanted to drop this off for you.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, unlocking the door so that he could put it down in the hallway.

  ‘It’s just something for the summer holidays,’ he said, ‘to help keep you entertained.’

  ‘It’s not anything too messy, is it?’ I asked, imagining a box full of glitter and glue sticks. ‘You know I’m not great with crafts.’

  ‘It’s not messy, I promise,’ he said. ‘It’s no big deal, you can look later.’ He shut the front door before I had chance to protest and we walked to the car.

  Ian has always been the sensible one, so obviously he had come to the cinema prepared. ‘No, no, no!’ he chorused as the girls requested popcorn, pick-and-mix and overpriced drinks. ‘We’re covered,’ he said, patting his backpack.

  Inside Screen 3, Jess’s voice took on a new echoey quality as she settled on her booster seat.

  ‘Daddy, why is it dark?’

  ‘Mummy, has the film started yet?’

  ‘Daddy, why have you got all those sweets in your bag?’

  ‘Mummy, why are you shushing me?’

  Snacks were distributed. Ian and I were sitting at opposite ends, the girls sandwiched between us. He reached around the back of their seats and handed me a can. I peered at it in the semi-darkness – it was 200ml of sparkling pinot grigio.

  Who knew you could get wine in a can? This could be a game changer. Sent a picture to WIB.

  Ian dropped me home after the film. (I may have cried a teeny bit. At the film, not at being dropped home.) When I got inside I saw the holiday cardboard box. I wasn’t sure I could quite face a job lot of coloured cardboard and lollipop sticks, but then I do like opening parcels. I sat down on the floor in the hallway and pulled off the Sellotape.

  Inside was a layer of scrunched-up tissue paper with an envelope on the top. Inside was a card – one of those awful ones with a cartoon picture of a glass and a naff slogan – ‘My head says go to the gym,’ it said, ‘but my heart says drink more prosecco!’ Ian knows I hate those. I bet he thought he was being hilarious.

  He’d written inside.

  ‘I’ve thought a lot about everything that has happened to us over the last couple of years and I know that neither of us were as happy as we could be – you were right to make us face up to it, even if I didn’t especially want to see it. What makes me saddest now is feeling like I’ve lost my best friend. I hope that one day we can go back to how we once were. No matter what happens I will always think that you’re an amazing mum. I know you think that it doesn’t come as naturally to you as it should, but that’s exactly why you’re so good at it – you think about it and you want to be the best mum you can be.’

  I may have had another little cry at this point. Probably just Mamma Mia 2 playing on my mind.

  ‘That said,’ he continued, ‘I know the summer holidays are tough, especially this year. I’m so proud of you for making the change and I know you’re going to make it work. For now, though, here’s a little something to help you get through the next six weeks. Xxx’

  I pulled off the tissue paper. Underneath were six bottles of prosecco, six double packs of Jaffa Cakes and a six-pack of Wotsits.

  I read the card again and then held it, sitting on the floor in the hallway, until it got dark around me.

  Thursday 26 July – summer holidays

  Flo has to be at Exeter bus station by 8 a.m. tomorrow so today was mainly taken up by packing. I got it into my head that I had to label everything, which is ridiculous as we’ve managed fourteen years so far and I don’t think I’ve ever labelled anything.

  We have lost of lot of PE kits, though. Perhaps it’s finally starting to sink in.

  Message on Tinder this evening from Stefan, a thirty-nine-year-old landscape gardener who wanted to know if I would be interested in meeting him and his wife in a hotel one afternoon to ‘explore possibilities’. He was actually very nice about it, almost apologetic, so I did send a polite no thank you. Then I deleted the app. Maybe just for the summer holidays. I don’t think I have the mental space for dating alongside the holiday corkboard.

  Friday 27 July

  We dropped Flo off at the bus station this morning. Ian came too, to say goodbye.

  I could tell she was nervous because she was looking a bit cross and aloof. She shrugged me off when I tried to put my arm around her shoulders as we waited for the coach, but she stood close to me and kept glancing down at Jess, who was making her ponies do a death walk along the edge of the kerb.

  Other teenagers were gathering around us and, to be honest, they looked like exactly the kind of kids who would relish a twig-based code-breaking challenge.

  I hoped Flo wouldn’t notice.

  ‘Ian,’ I said, after we’d packed Flo off and waved at the coach until it was out of sight, ‘I wanted to say thank you for the box you left me. It was so kind of you.’

  ‘Not a bit cheesy?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, the Wotsits, maybe,’ I said, ‘but apart from that. It was such a lovely thing to do, and lovely things to say. I feel just the same. I really want us to be able to be friends again one day. Properly, like we used to, without it feeling weird.’

  He smiled and pulled me in for a hug. ‘
We will, Frankie,’ he said, and I believed him.

  Saturday 28 July

  This is all totally fine. Summer holidays going very smoothly.

  Sunday 29 July

  Is it over yet?

  Monday 30 July

  I was woken up at 5.47 this morning by Jess getting into bed next to me with the iPad to tell me she was going to watch programmes and would I like to watch with her? I said no thank you, it was a little early for me. I tried to go back to sleep but the relentless enthusiasm of Captain Barnacles was too much.

  I scrolled through Instagram and found a quote that someone had published about how we only have eighteen amazing summers with our children and how we should cherish every moment.

  I can’t say that it was great timing for me as I lay there, trying to think about how on earth we were going to fill the time between meals for an entire week.

  As a response to the ridiculous person who posted the quote, I thought I would compile a detailed report of my day.

  5.47: Arrival in bed of Jess and Captain Barnacles.

  6.03: Many cries of ‘Watch it with me, Mummy!’ Assure Jess that I definitely am enjoying the underwater adventures of Captain Barnacles and his lively crew. Scroll through Instagram with phone hidden behind thigh.

  6.05: ‘Mummy, you’re not watching! Put your phone away!’

  6.07: Repeat two previous steps until I can take it no more and decide to get up.

  6.24: Make breakfast. Forced to eat Weetos as I foolishly poured milk into the bowl I made for Jess when she had clearly stated she wanted her cereal dry in a measuring jug so that she can carry it around. Milk requested separately in the red beaker. Emotions run high when I cannot locate the red beaker but we negotiate and settle on blue with the red lid.

  6.42: Start thinking about lunch.

  6.51: Go in the shower while Jess ‘organises’ my underwear drawer.

  7.13: Put pants back into underwear drawer. Take out ponies and Weetos.

  7.25: Get Jess dressed. Try to interest her in the Boden summer dress I bought in the NCT new-to-you sale for £2. Jess keener on thick leggings, woollen jumper and Thomas the Tank Engine wellies. I show her the weather forecast and explain what thirty degrees means but she refuses to acknowledge potential heat stroke. Jess wins. I secrete dress and sandals in handbag.

  7.43: Wonder how early is too early to go to the park.

  7.45: Leave for park.

  7.50: Return home for ponies.

  7.53: Leave again for park.

  7.58: Go back because Jess needs a poo.

  8.25: Arrive at park. Four other parents already there. Understanding smiles as they spot the wellies. Three of them have had the forethought to brings reusable cups of coffee from home as the park café doesn’t open until 9. Very jealous having to make do with slurps of Jess’s milk.

  (Note to Park Life Café – you are missing a desperate and captive audience.)

  8.35: Jess very pink of cheek but in denial.

  8.45: Jess runs over looking angry. ‘I saw you drinking my milk!’ Deny everything. Top beaker up from the water fountain when she isn’t looking.

  8.53: Jess relents and changes into summer dress and sandals. Winter outfit does not fit back in handbag. Didn’t think that through.

  9: First in queue to buy coffee. Order latte but then, like every single time I come to the park, I see the ‘cash only’ sign and realise I only have £1.83 of the required £2.50. Tired-looking mum behind me chips in the remaining 67p. Lovely sense of wartime camaraderie.

  9.07: Jess engrossed in sandpit-based activity involving ponies. Start listening to a very funny podcast about periods. Jess senses my happiness, despite having her back to me, and immediately insists I push her on the swings.

  9.23: I am allowed ten minutes to drink tepid coffee and listen to podcast while Jess befriends some ants.

  Etc., etc., until the sweet release of death.

  Tuesday 31 July

  See yesterday.

  Wednesday 1 August

  The house is full of the smell of warm bin. No matter how many times I empty it, it still smells like someone has put a ten-day-old pile of potato peelings in the microwave.

  I went to take out the food waste and recycling and the outside food waste bin was full of maggots. They seemed to be coming from inside one of the bags, so I wasn’t sure what to do with them.

  Options:

  Put maggot bag into main bin so I can clean food waste bin – but then maggots have been spread. I may as well just bring them inside and offer them tea.

  Put maggot bag somewhere else, (on the path?), while I clean out food waste bin, but then I have to put the maggots back in the food waste, thus rendering the operation pointless other than to give the maggots a nice change of scene for ten minutes.

  Pick my least favourite neighbour and put the maggots in their bin.

  In the end I went for just shutting the box again and pretending not to have noticed.

  Thursday 2 August

  I took Jess to the library this morning.

  I’d suggested it to Flo before she went as something we could do together next week, hoping to rekindle those glory days when she was still interested in life and I could get her to do the summer reading challenge.

  She’d laughed, though in a cynical way. I’d pictured her as a fifty-three-year-old New York businessman planning the takeover of a small family bagel business. Someone has suggested keeping on Margaret, the seventy-two-year-old bookkeeper who can’t really see any more but everyone loves.

  (Summer holidays clearly pushing me to insanity already.)

  The children’s area in the library in Barnmouth is very different from the library I used to take Flo to back in London ten years ago. Then it was just a corner of the main library with rows of shelves of young adult fiction and a couple of those boxes in the shape of trains, full of tatty picture books.

  Here it’s more like a soft play centre. They have those huge foam blocks for toddlers to toss around, a wigwam, some ride-on toys, a couple of chairs for the grown-ups – it’s all going on. I assume they are trying to lure in families who find the concept of reading a little dull on its own but I can’t help feeling it distracts a little bit from the actual books.

  There were two boys there when we arrived who looked about four and six years old. A man – presumably dad – was sitting in the corner on his phone.

  Clearly not aware of the whole ‘quiet in the library’ thing, the boys were having a great time with the toys.

  ‘Reuben!’ yelled the smaller one. ‘Reuben! Look at me!’ He proceeded to throw himself off a ride-on tractor and on to the scratchy library carpet. Reuben seemed unimpressed.

  ‘Louis!’ he yelled back ‘I’m the big boss man! Look at me!’ He put on a deep voice. ‘Hello there, I’m the boss and I hate myself!’ Not sure where that came from. Perhaps the dad is having some issues at work.

  Jess gave them a stern look as we passed them. ‘We’re here to look at the books, aren’t we, Mummy?’ she said pointedly.

  I did my best to ignore Reuben and Louis dashing in and out of the wigwam and driving the tractor into the shelves but I can’t say I was sorry when the dad finished his game of phone darts or whatever it was that he was doing with such concentration, and decided it was time to go. I noticed they didn’t actually take any books with them.

  (Question: why are library carpets so scratchy?)

  In the afternoon we went to Chapter One for our breakaway summer holiday Busy Beaver group. Possibly need to organise my corkboard a bit better to avoid library/bookshop clashes.

  I’d half expected it to be just me, Lou and Sierra but twelve families turned up, making it a bit of a squeeze, if anything. Rather than have toys in the middle and chairs around the outside, like they do a Busy Beavers, I’d put all the toy and books at one end of the room and arranged seats in a cluster at the other end, near the tea and coffee. It meant that all the kids were out of the way and that when new people came
in they could actually sit and talk to other parents. I’ve always found that whole ‘around the edge of the room’ thing weird at playgroups. So isolating.

  Lou and I made drinks and handed around biscuits and Sierra did a brilliant job of welcoming people when they arrived and, if they were on their own, introducing them to people.

  About half an hour in a nervous-looking woman with a very neat bob came and sat down next to me. ‘I can’t thank you enough for putting this on,’ she said, looking around conspiratorially, as though she was about to confess to being on the run for stealing Jaffa Cakes from the Co-op, ‘I only moved here a few months ago and I was getting a bit panicky about what I was going to do over the summer holidays. It’s just me and Billy,’ she said, nodding towards a rather sappy-looking small boy in dungarees, ‘and to tell the truth I find it pretty lonely. I wanted this to be a fresh start, but I’ve found it harder than I thought to make friends. That sounds a bit pathetic, I know. I’m Sonia, by the way.’

  ‘I totally get that,’ I said. ‘I’ve been here over a year now and it’s only in the last few months that I’ve felt brave enough to really make an effort to get to know people. It’s tough, putting yourself out there, so don’t beat yourself up about it.’

  ‘I did try the toddler music classes in the Scout hut,’ she said, ‘but it was just awful. Billy wouldn’t join in at all and I felt as though all the other parents were judging me. I ended up sitting by myself in the ring, banging a tambourine and singing ‘The Music Man’ while Billy sat in his pushchair looking at a book. It was pretty humiliating. I couldn’t bring myself to go back again. Busy Beavers isn’t too bad, but I’ve not found people to be hugely friendly – it seems a bit cliquey?’

  ‘There are definitely some established groups,’ I agreed, ‘and it’s always hard to break in to existing friendships.’