Playgroups and Prosecco

by Jo Middleton

  No job offers. (Other than fucking housemates, obviously, but I don’t imagine I was even going to get paid for that.)

  Wednesday 29 August

  Rejection email from the disability charity on the grounds of me ‘not having the necessary experience’. That’s a joke. The job description was all answering the phone and opening the post and I’ve been managing to do that perfectly well for myself for nearly forty years.

  A second rejection from one of the jobs I only applied for yesterday, as a doctor’s receptionist. I was relieved about that one, to be honest. All that sniffing – it drives me mad when it’s just Jess, so I’m not sure I could cope with a whole room full of it every day.

  Thursday 30 August

  The girls are still at Ian’s mum’s but I went along to Chapter One parent group this afternoon. Lots of people were asking whether or not we are going to carry on after the holidays. The general consensus was that people would rather come to our group than to Busy Beavers – friendlier atmosphere and better choice of biscuits being the key reasons given.

  I went downstairs to see how Dylan felt about us making it a permanent event. He said he was more than happy to have us. I offered to pay him from the money we collect for coffee and biscuits, but he said that so far he’d got at least one sale out of it every week and that was good enough for him.

  All the parents seemed very pleased.

  Friday 31 August

  Three more job rejections but … drum roll please … two interviews!

  Hooray!

  One is a marketing job at the dog rescue centre, which I actually think I’d be pretty good at as it’s very similar to a lot of what I was doing at the museum. I wonder if I could somehow turn Cecilia’s cocker spaniel and its bowel condition into ‘experience of working with dogs’? It did sit under my desk a couple of times when Cecilia came in to stuff envelopes.

  The second interview is in one of the really lovely interiors shops in town as a ‘retail store colleague’. (I.e., to work in the shop.) I don’t especially want to work in retail, but Lou wants the staff discount, so I said I might as well try.

  Girls home at teatime. They seemed pleased to see me for about five minutes.

  Dog interview is on Tuesday, ‘retail store colleague’ is Wednesday.

  Saturday 1 September

  Other people with similar ideas on how to spend the last weekend of the summer holidays – 1,923,827. Time from me buying Jess an ice cream to it ending up on the pavement – 12 seconds. (New PB.)

  The sun was shining when we woke up this morning. I say ‘when we woke up’ – when I first woke up it was with a naked Barbie shoved in my face at 5.37 a.m., so it was dark, but I quickly quashed ‘Barbies’ as a concept for that time in the morning and just let Jess get into bed next to me.

  When I woke up the second time, then the sun was shining, so I decided we’d have a wholesome family day out. It’s the last weekend of the summer holidays, after all.

  I sent Jess to wake Flo to see what she fancied doing and I went downstairs to make sandwiches. It was an hour before they emerged from Flo’s bedroom, by which time I was feeling incredibly pleased with myself as I’d gone as far as boiling eggs.

  ‘We want to do minigolf,’ said Flo, coming into the kitchen and grabbing the box of Weetos down off the shelf, ‘but only if we can get dark chocolate sorbet from the gelato place.’ She took a handful of Weetos straight from the box with her hand and shoved them in her mouth.

  ‘Minigolf it is, then,’ I said, passing her a bowl.

  ‘I’m good, thanks, Mum,’ she said, wandering off into the lounge with the box. ‘I’ll just have breakfast and then I’ll get dressed.’

  ‘Shall I help you get dressed, Jess?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m good thanks, Mum,’ she said, mimicking Flo with a toss of her hair. ‘I’m going to choose my own clothes and look pretty like a pony.’

  Most of Jess’s ponies are naked save for oversized hair clips and large plastic shoes, so I was intrigued to see what she came up with. I made a cup of tea and took it out into the garden with my phone.

  There was a new post from @simple_dorset_life. It was only from last night but it has 325 likes already. I can’t imagine I will ever do anything in my entire life that 325 individual people will like. This photo was of a beautiful cup of coffee on a rustic wooden table top. Next to the cup was a vintage silver spoon and in one corner was the merest hint of a succulent.

  ‘I treat myself to one coffee a day,’ said the caption, ‘so I make sure it counts! I love the ritual of preparing the coffee machine, grinding the beans and steaming the milk before sitting down to enjoy each and every sip while my husband spends some time with the twins. It’s the tranquillity of the moment as much as the caffeine that gives me fuel for the day ahead. #blessed #coffeeart #simplepleasures # mindfulness’.

  An hour later and we were walking down towards the beach, me with a carrier bag of sandwiches, crisps and hard-boiled eggs, Jess wearing a bikini top, tutu and an elaborate hat. She was wearing the hat at an angle and, in fairness, it did have an edge of Applejack about it.

  Minigolf was a little on the frustrating side as one or two (million) other families had had the same idea. At each hole we had to wait for about ten minutes for the family in front of us to finish their round. They had a little boy with them who looked about two and was pretty much the same size as the golf club. I’m pretty sure there is a minigolf rule about taking a maximum number of attempts at a hole, but these guys were keen for their children to get the full experience.

  Jess got very twitchy and snapped one of the feathers off a plastic parrot, but I hid it behind a fake treasure chest before anyone noticed.

  After golf we walked up to the park for our picnic lunch. It was hot and there were small children everywhere running around with no clothes on, splashing in and out of the fountains. Jess immediately took off her tutu and pants and ran off without so much as a sniff of my cheese and tomato sandwiches.

  I lay back on the grass. Flo was chatting to me about a girl in her school who had got a tattoo without her parents knowing. She sounded very disapproving.

  ‘Er, Mum,’ she said, ‘you might want to look at what Jess is doing.’

  I turned my head to the side and brought my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun. I could see her crouched in the fountain. At first I thought she might be just examining something in the water but then I looked at her face and recognised the pink cheeks and look of concentrate.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I said, jumping up.

  Literally.

  As I ran towards her I realised things were already past the point of no return. She was about to shit in the fountain, a fountain full of dozens of other unsuspecting children, and I wasn’t going to be able to stop her.

  I panicked.

  I reached the fountain and Jess. She didn’t even notice me, so involved was she in her task. I imagined the furore that would follow a poo floating around in the water and I instinctively cupped my hands.

  ‘Mum!’ shouted Flo in horror. She’d caught up with me and was staring down at us, Jess squatting just above the water, me with my hands cupped beneath her.

  And then there I was, in a public park, with a large poo in my hands.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Flo, laughing now, ‘that’s hilarious, Stay there!’ I realised she was getting her phone out of her back pocket.

  ‘Nooooo!’ I wailed. ‘Don’t film me! Help me!’

  She was laughing too much, though, the camera pointing at me as I crouched there with the turd, ankle deep in fountain water. Jess, having finished, had stood up and turned around to look at me.

  ‘Where did that come from Mummy?’ she asked innocently, looking at my hands.

  ‘From your bum,’ I said, starting to laugh myself.

  She looked unsure.

  ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘Really!’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, you should wash your hands, Mummy, because that’
s disgusting.’

  ‘I know!’ I said. Flo was mildly hysterical by this point, but still filming. Other parents had started to notice a commotion and were looking over, so I closed my hands (carefully) and tried to look casual as I walked back to our picnic area.

  ‘Quick, Flo,’ I said, nodding at the sandwich bag, ‘tip the eggs out and hold it open for me.’

  ‘Ergh!’ she said. ‘You can’t put it in there!’

  ‘What do you expect me to do, carry it home? Jesus Christ, just open the bag before this thing starts to dissolve or something.’

  Once we’d bagged the offending item I left Flo in charge and cleaned myself up in the park toilets. Poo safely disposed of and hands scrubbed, I went back to the girls but couldn’t quite bring myself to peel and eat an egg.

  We stopped for the promised ice creams on the way home and Jess instantly dropped hers on the floor, obviously.

  I sent WIB the link to Flo’s video, which she had kindly uploaded to YouTube already. It had only had seven views, which I felt kind of disappointed about. If I’m going to have to catch a shit in my hands in a public park, then the least it could do is go viral.

  Had a message on Tinder from a guy called Kier. Didn’t tell him about our wholesome family day out.

  Sunday 2 September

  Classic last day of summer holiday activities completed today:

  Go to Asda to buy skort for Flo for PE kit as cannot find hers. Flo doesn’t like the shade of blue and refuses to buy it

  Go to Sainsbury’s for skort. No skorts

  Small meltdown (Flo) in Sainsbury’s car park. Do I want her to look a fool and have no friends? No, but also doubtful that the shade of blue of her skort will be as influential as wearing no skort at all

  Go back to Asda to buy skort

  Go home for lunch and very small medicinal glass of wine (It’s the weekend)

  Flo cleans out school bag and discovers lunch box from July, complete with uneaten sandwiches and what might once have been a satsuma. Both too scared to open it so throw the entire lunchbox in the bin

  Drive back to Asda to buy new lunchbox

  Woman on the front desk at Asda says, ‘Hello again!’

  Home again for more whining/wining (Wining = to fill self with wine in times of emergency)

  (Question: what actually is the point of a skort? Why can’t they just wear shorts? Why the requirement to create the illusion of wearing a skirt for PE?)

  Monday 3 September – back to school

  First day of Year 10 for Flo. She has been outwardly calm about it, but I know she has been getting nervous over the last couple of weeks so I got up extra early and made her good-luck pancakes for breakfast with smiley faces made out of strawberries.

  ‘Mum, you’re so lame,’ she said when she came downstairs and into the kitchen, but she was smiling. I don’t mind being lame in that way.

  Jess is back to her usual routine at nursery. We need to keep her place open for when I land my dream job (ha!) and we have her vouchers, anyway. They said they could be flexible if we need to change hours. I applied for a job at Dorset County Council that’s part-time and term time only, so there should only be about another one million other women applying for that one.

  Had a nice little Tinder chat with Kier. He works half his week as a drama teacher and the other half as a therapist. I’ve always thought that I could probably do with some therapy, so perhaps this way I could get it at the same time as having someone buy me dinner?

  Tuesday 4 September

  I arrived at the dog rescue centre twenty minutes early and sat in the car eating a Mars Bar (for interview energy). I scrolled through Instagram for inspirational dog accounts. Got distracted by @simple_dorset_life making a late-summer salad with courgetini and nasturtium flowers.

  Caption read: ‘The convenience of a supermarket is great, but why would you choose to spend hours in the aisles when we have nature’s bounty on our doorstep? Nasturtiums don’t even charge delivery! #flowersasfood #rawdiet #insideandout’.

  Christ.

  I was caught slightly off guard when I went into the interview room and noticed a dog sitting in the corner of the room. It wasn’t in a basket or a bed or anything, it was literally just standing there, watching … like it might have come down from head office to oversee the interview process and feed back to senior management.

  I wasn’t sure what to do – should I pet it? It was a bit funny-looking. I didn’t want to seem unprofessional by cooing over a dog when I was meant to be answering questions about membership databases and social media marketing, so I concentrated on the human members of the interview panel.

  I thought it went well – I gave a great little talk about the use of dog-related hashtags and one of the panel seemed to especially like my use of the phrase ‘crowd-sourced content’ (i.e., getting people to send you pictures of their own dogs to save you work).

  They called at teatime to let me know I didn’t get it. Lesson: always pet the dog.

  Wednesday 5 September

  Totally misjudged the tone at the interior shop interview. When the owner asked me about appraisals and what I would expect from her as my manager in terms of support I said, ‘Jaffa Cakes?’

  It was only meant to be a joke.

  They phoned me half an hour after I left. No staff discount for Lou.

  Thursday 6 September

  Did some job-hunting online this morning. About 93 per cent of the available jobs on the site I looked at seemed to be for cleaners or support workers, neither of which I feel able to do as I am 1) rubbish at cleaning 2) not terribly supportive. I sent an email to a local wedding venue who are looking for a Wedding and Events Coordinator and applied to be the ‘Social Media and Marketing Recruitment Officer’ at the local NHS trust. I think I was being a bit over-ambitious with that one, plus it’s full-time, but I’m getting a bit desperate now. I quite fancied being a Laboratory Assistant, but that’s only because I imagined myself in a white coat, examining evidence for Sherlock. It only pays £7.50 an hour, so probably much less glam than it sounds in my head.

  I was intrigued by the ad for a ‘Loving Dog Sitter’ but I think we know my success rate when it comes to dog-based roles.

  I picked up three pairs of Flo’s dirty socks from around the house this morning. One on the sofa, one in the bathroom and one by the front door. (Why?) What is it about teenagers and socks? I put socks on in the morning and take them off at night. Teenagers seem to randomly shed theirs at intervals, wherever they happen to be, like a snake skin. The front door pair were particularly baffling – surely this would be exactly the place you’d want to put socks on?

  I’ve noticed, too, that Flo has been spending a lot of time on her phone this week and smiling to herself. Not that I think smiling in itself is a suspicious behaviour, but when you’re fourteen it stands out sometimes. Maybe she has a boyfriend? God!

  Friday 7 September – Jess’s birthday

  Jess had wanted the following at her birthday party:

  Bouncy castle

  Dog that could balance things on its nose

  Party rings

  Cheese sandwiches cut into shapes of different Sylvanian Family animals

  Unicorn

  All of the children from nursery and our new bookshop parent group

  Jess actually got:

  Me, Ian and Flo

  Pizza and Wotsits

  Trip to the cinema to see Incredibles 2

  The promise of a trip to the fair tomorrow

  I got:

  Two cans of wine and a grab bag of Twirl Bites

  Very satisfactory.

  I asked Kier what his favourite biscuit was this evening.

  ‘I do love a good Jaffa Cake,’ he said, ‘although are they strictly a biscuit?’

  I told him about the whole botched interview thing and he said that if he owned an interiors shop he would definitely take me on me as his retail store colleague.

  Saturday 8 September

&n
bsp; I had my favourite kind of period pains today – a pressure in my lower back, as though I’m trying to hold one of those kilogram weights from the old school science labs inside my rectum. It’s a rather disconcerting sensation as you essentially spend the whole day feeling like you might be about to poo your pants at any moment – and what successful woman about town doesn’t want that?

  Of course, what you really need when you’re feeling like your insides are being scraped out with a wonky spatula is to go to a fairground. I find the whole ‘cup and saucer’ experience really adds to the vibe.

  God.

  The posters for the ‘fun fair’ – oxymoron right there – had been strategically slapped up around town at child-eye level, in the all the places most likely to engage small children/piss off parents – e.g., outside primary schools, in the car park at nursery, on the noticeboard near the crisps at Micro Soft – and to stop Jess banging on about it every single time she saw it I had promised that we would go for her birthday. It was about three weeks away at the time, far enough in the future for it to seem like a less-pressing issue than ‘would Jess go to sleep and leave me enough time to fit in two episodes of Gilmore Girls and at least one large glass of wine?’

  Thankfully, Flo understands the joy of periods now, so I was able to bribe her to go on all the rides with Jess on the promise of three sets of false eyelashes.

  On reflection, Jess could probably have done without the candyfloss, especially as there was a bit of a breeze getting up at that point, but I improvised a hairband with one of my socks and, as long as you didn’t look at me below the ankle, I think we got away with it.

  We were on our way out, having successfully diverted Jess’s gaze from the Hook a Duck (three pounds!), and I was starting to relax. Big mistake. The balloon man sensed my weakness and pounced.