Playgroups and Prosecco

by Jo Middleton

  ‘Definitely not,’ I reassured him, ‘you’re very easy to talk to.’ And it was true, he was. If anything he was too easy to talk to. You know how sometimes you meet someone and within an hour or so you’re telling each other your whole life histories? It was like that. I never think that’s a great sign, though, with a potential partner as it clearly means you don’t give a toss about what they think of you already.

  After we’d gone our separate ways and I was at home in bed, I lay awake for quite a long time, thinking about the evening. As much as I want to be open-minded about dating and find someone to love for who they are inside, I’d felt uncomfortable about him being shorter than me. Did that make me a bad person? We’d got on well, but there hadn’t been that spark – had I simply switched off from him when I’d seen how tall he was? Or was it just that we didn’t have a connection?

  More importantly, what was I meant to do now? Should I tell him I didn’t want to see him again and, more importantly, should I tell him why?

  Thursday 20 September

  Message from Kier this morning.

  ‘Hi, Frankie,’ it said, ‘thanks so much for meeting up with me last night, I had a lovely evening and found you very easy to chat to. Unfortunately, I don’t see it going any further – I think you’re probably a bit too old for me and generally I prefer women who are a little more styled? Best of luck with your search for love! X’

  Well, that told me didn’t it?

  Saturday 22 September

  That is the last time I try to do something with nature.

  Jess slept until 8.30 this morning, which I’m not sure has ever happened before, so I woke up all full of energy and enthusiasm for life, otherwise known as ‘normal’ by people without small children. In my delirious state I decided it would be good fun to go for a walk up on the hills with a picnic. I’ve heard of other families who do go for walks, for fun.

  Flo was about as excited as she was when she had to get the human papilloma virus vaccination (actually googled that, which is ridiculous, because who am I trying to impress? Myself?), but I promised that we could stop and get a Frappuccino on the way home and she relented. Jess was very keen indeed.

  ‘Can I bring home a pet?’ she asked.

  ‘A pet?’ I said. ‘No, we’re going for a walk, not to get a pet.’

  ‘But Maddie went out with her Mummy last week and they got a pet,’ she said.

  ‘Well, that doesn’t mean we are getting one,’ I said. ‘There won’t be any pets where we’re going. We’re going to go for a walk on the hills and into the woods.’

  ‘Will there be birds?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably,’ I said, and then quickly, realising where this was going, ‘but you aren’t allowed to catch wild birds and keep them as pets.’

  ‘How about an ant?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘A goose?’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘What kind of pet then?’

  ‘No kind.’

  I packed up a picnic, including a mini bottle of white wine, just for emergencies, because it’s the weekend, and off we went. It was actually pretty nice. A bit blowy, but Flo paid Jess a lot of attention once she realised she couldn’t get a phone signal and there was even a game of hide-and-seek. I’d just spread the towel out for lunch (my best attempt at a picnic blanket), when I noticed Jess wriggling.

  ‘Do you need a wee?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, sitting down. ‘Can I have a muffin?’

  She was squirming on the towel. ‘Not before your sandwich,’ I said. ‘Are you sure you don’t need a wee?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ she said. She took one bite of a ham sandwich. ‘Can I have a muffin now?’

  ‘Eat some more sandwich,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, ‘I need a wee.’

  Leaving Flo in charge of the picnic towel I took Jess behind the nearest tree and helped her take off her pants. I gathered her skirt up around her waist.

  ‘I’m going to hold you up,’ I said, ‘so you don’t get it on your shoes.’ We assumed the position and Jess began her wee. Two seconds in and there was a loud screech from some kind of bird overhead. Startled, Jess twisted around to look behind her at where the noise had come from. The wee twisted with her.

  ‘Jess!’ I shouted, making it worse as she then twisted back towards me, showering me all over again. I looked down at my now decidedly pissy Matalan ‘could almost be Saltwater Sandals if you squint a bit’ sandals. My ankles were wet, too, and my trousers had splashes up to mid shin.

  First the shit in the hand and now this?

  Flo found it highly amusing, obviously, although not so funny when I took the picnic towel out from under her to dry my legs.

  Sunday 23 September

  Spent an entire day playing Topsy and Tim.

  As far as Jess’s made-up games go it was pretty low key – basically she called me Tim instead of Mummy and I had to remember to call her Topsy. Things went smoothly as long as I remembered, less smoothly when I didn’t.

  ‘Come and put your shoes on, Jess,’ I’d say.

  Silence.

  ‘Shoes, please!’

  Nothing.

  ‘Come on, Jess!’

  ‘I’m not called Jess! I am Topsy!’

  ‘Sorry, Topsy, please can you get your shoes on?’

  Like that. But about 200 times.

  Monday 24 September

  Flo asked if I could help her with her geography homework this evening. It was about weather. She had a map of rainfall in the UK and had to explain why some areas of the country get more rain than others.

  I felt that this should be something I knew straightaway, in the same way that I know facts like mammals give birth to live young, but all I could think was that everyone knows it’s a bit rainier ‘up north’, which I don’t think was helpful. (And also not true, it turns out.)

  I thought back to my geography GCSE, but the only thing I have ever been able to remember from that is how oxbow lakes are formed. I’m sure we learned other things, and yet somehow that is all that stuck.

  I pretended I needed to go to the toilet and quickly googled ‘UK rainfall patterns’ in the bathroom. I have to say it didn’t help me a great deal. It seemed to be a lot to do with prevailing winds, which is an expression I’ve heard a lot but never really understood.

  I went back downstairs, none the wiser, and suggested instead that one of the most effective ways to learn something was to explain it to other people and that she should try that.

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’ she said, raising her eyebrows in a sceptical way that I didn’t feel showed a great deal of respect.

  I told her that of course I did, I was just trying to help her establish her own level of knowledge first. Authority undermined slightly by my phone pinging with a message from Lou saying, ‘Is it something to do with prevailing winds?’

  Flo rolled her eyes and closed her book with a flourish, saying that it didn’t matter anyway as someone could ‘DM her the mark scheme’.

  Tuesday 25 September

  Typed up seven obituaries at work today. By the end of the day I almost wished it was my funeral.

  Friday 28 September

  I have decided that if I’m ever going to have sex with a man again, which could happen, then I need to do something to get back in touch with myself. (Pun intended.)

  I just don’t feel sexy nowadays. I spend all day being a mum, and by the time I get into bed the thought of anything sexual is just exhausting. The last couple of times I’ve tried having a bit of me time I’ve literally fallen asleep. If I don’t even find myself arousing enough to stay awake, then I’m not exactly going to ooze sex appeal to a potential new boyfriend, am I?

  To make a start, I thought I’d experiment with a bit of erotic fiction. I know, the whole genre is meant to be shit, but also millions of people love it, so it can’t be that bad, can it? At the weekend I bought a book on Amazon called Sweet Sensation – I f
elt bad for not supporting Chapter One, but I could hardly go in and buy it from Dylan, could I? ‘Oh yeah, hi Dylan, just popped in for a bit of soft porn! How are the kids?’

  It arrived on Tuesday but I’ve kept it in the cardboard packaging in case Jess found it and took it to nursery show and tell or something.

  At about 7 p.m. I poured a glass of wine and took it upstairs with the book, feeling a bit shifty. I needed a wee, which is not a sexy start, so I went into the bedroom first to chuck the book on the bed but threw the glass of wine instead. Honestly, I just threw the whole thing, glass and all.

  What the hell is the matter with me?

  I had to strip the bed and turn the mattress, which is no mean feat on your own. I found a clean sheet and put the wet bedding on to wash. The duvet had a huge wet patch on, so I took the duvet off Flo’s bed and hung mine over the bannisters to dry out. Fortunately the pillow escaped, but the whole room stank like a Wetherspoons on a hot day. It certainly wasn’t the saucy atmosphere I’d been hoping to create. Goddammit, why am I such a goon?

  Hid Sweet Sensation under the mattress (avoiding the wet patch).

  Saturday 29 September

  Second attempt at Sweet Sensation tonight.

  The cover showed a close-up of melted chocolate being dripped on to a stocking-clad thigh. (When I ordered it, there was a part of me that was drawn to it purely for the chocolate.) I made myself comfy and prepared to be eroticised (is that a word?) but honestly, the writing was so bad that there was no way I could ‘lose myself in the seduction’ as the blurb had promised me.

  I did have fun sending my favourite lines to WIB though.

  ‘I taste him and he’s sweet, like a cheap banana split bought at a chain pub near a motorway roundabout.’

  What about that does not scream sexy? I can’t go into a lower-end chain pub without feeling aroused.

  ‘He walks towards me, slinging the reusable shopping bag casually yet seductively over his shoulder. My insides dance like a stripper with an overdue electricity bill.’

  ‘Oh, hang on,’ replied Sierra, ‘I think I just climaxed.’

  ‘Who doesn’t like a man who cares about plastic bag waste?’ asked Lou.

  Ian has asked me if I want to go on holiday with him and the girls during October half-term. They’ve been planning it since the summer and have a villa booked in Portugal. He says he doesn’t want to put me under any pressure, but just thought it might be nice to spend some time together as a family, to help us get back to being friends. He says the villa has loads of space, so I don’t need to decide now.

  Sunday 30 September

  Today, on our child-free Sundays, Lou and I went to goat yoga.

  She’d roped me into it a few months ago when I’d had a couple of glasses of wine and was complaining about my lone weekends being boring, but at the time I’d not really thought about it much. I figured maybe the goats were on leads. Or perhaps baby goats were brought in at intervals and placed strategically on your back, like a sort of massage.

  Goat yoga is not like that.

  What actually happens is that you place your old beach towel out on the floor of a grubby barn and a yoga teacher attempts to talk you through a regular yoga class while at the same time half a dozen goats run around trying to bite you and pissing on your feet. (Very much like a day out with Jess, really.)

  I don’t mind yoga, but I’d always thought the whole point was to leave feeling serene and relaxed, not to spend an hour on guard because of animals trying to eat your hair.

  Also, I was slightly distracted throughout by the man (if you can call him that – he looked about twenty-four), who seemed to be there in the role of goat herder. He stood at the back throughout the session, presumably ready to jump in if any of the goats went too off-piste. There was something about him that made it very hard for me to concentrate 100 per cent on saluting the sun.

  I might have been imagining it, but I was sure I could feel him watching me. I tried to sneak a look during downward dog but it’s a bit hard to tell upside down, especially with a goat between your legs.

  We’d finished the yoga and were doing a bit of a goat meet-and-greet when goat man came and stood next to me by the pen. Lou was off in the farm toilets, applying copious amounts of hand sanitiser.

  ‘Have you done much yoga before?’ he asked, shuffling about a bit and looking adorable. ‘You looked like you really knew what you were doing.’

  ‘Not really,’ I said, turning my back on the goats. ‘I guess I’m just naturally bendy.’

  Honestly, I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was all the deep breathing. I swear I saw him blush.

  ‘Well, your husband is a very lucky man then,’ he said with a wink, suddenly not seeming as shy. It was my turn to blush. I told him I wasn’t married, that it was just me.

  ‘Oh!’ he said, taking off his cap and fiddling about with it. ‘Well, in that case, maybe I could get your number and take you out sometime? If that isn’t too unprofessional of me? I mean, I know you came to see the goats, really, not pick up farmers, but if you wanted …?’

  Was he flustered? I leant back with my elbows on the edge of the pen in what I hoped was a casual pose that also showed my boobs at their best.

  ‘Why don’t you give me yours?’ I said, handing him my phone for him to type in his number. He typed his name – Dustin – (a bit Disney Channel but we can brush over that), added his phone number and handed it back to me.

  I smiled, gathered up my stuff and sashayed away to meet Lou. ‘Nice to meet you, Dustin!’ I called over my shoulder. Who is this woman with all the sass?

  When I got home I realised I should have got Lou to take some pictures of me for Instagram – @simple_dorset_life might have seen and decided she wanted to be my best friend. I checked her account but she hasn’t posted anything for weeks – not since the coffee cup. Very strange. Perhaps she is on some sort of fermented foods retreat.

  Monday 1 October

  I waited until 7.32 p.m. to message Dustin because it seemed like a casual, spontaneous kind of time for a Monday, like I might have got home from work, had something to eat, and then found myself at a bit of a loose end. He wasn’t to know that I was sitting on the floor in Jess’s room with the blackout blinds closed, trying to convince her that she was tired.

  ‘Hey,’ I typed, (breezy), ‘I’m feeling a bit stiff after yesterday. Perhaps I’m not as bendy as I thought!’

  One grey tick turned to two.

  ‘Mummy,’ whined Jess from her bed, ‘I’m really honestly not tired. Can I get up and play Sylvanians, just for a little bit?’

  I told her no, it was definitely bedtime.

  ‘But I’m bored,’ she said. ‘I need something to play with.’

  I fumbled around on the floor by the light of my phone and found two members of the raccoon family.

  ‘Play with these,’ I said, throwing them towards the bed.

  ‘Ow!’ said Jess. ‘They hit me on the arm!’

  I shushed her and went back to staring at my phone.

  Two grey ticks turned to blue. I took a deep breath in and held it. ‘Dustin is typing …’ my phone told me. Then he wasn’t. Then he was again. Then a reply.

  ‘I was a bit stiff after watching you do that downward dog,’ he wrote. He followed it up with a little monkey face with his hands over his mouth.

  Outrageous. But also very exciting.

  ‘Sorry,’ he wrote, ‘but every time I close my eyes I keep seeing your bum. It’s amazing!’

  ‘Really?’ I wrote back, ‘I’d always thought I was more a “waist up” kind of girl.’

  ‘Honestly! It’s the best bum I’ve ever seen!’

  We chatted for about an hour, until I realised that Jess had given up complaining and had fallen asleep and that my highly desirable bum had gone numb on the floor. We talked about work and books and travel and all the places we’d like to visit. It was exciting.

  Later I floated the ‘me coming on holiday idea�
�� to Flo and she seemed really keen. I’d thought she might want it just to be her and Jess and Ian, and would feel that I was intruding, but she said she thought it would be really good.

  ‘You and Dad are funny together,’ she said, ‘like Ant and Dec.’

  (Question: which one does she see me as? Hopefully not the one with the drink problem.)

  Tuesday 2 October

  Message from Dustin at 2 p.m.: ‘How has your day been?’

  I told him I have been entrusted with downloading the paper’s weekly crossword from an online crossword site and about the late-morning scandal concerning a particular street in Barnmouth that has been missed off the recycling collection route for two weeks running.

  ‘Wow, it sounds cutting edge,’ he said, clearly impressed. ‘I’m so swamped by work at the moment, I could really do with a break.’ Oh, I see. The old ‘swamped by work’ line. I knew immediately where it was going, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

  ‘What are you busiest with at the moment?’ I asked instead.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ he replied quickly, clearly wanting to get it over with, ‘the usual farm stuff. It’s a bit relentless, to be honest. I hardly ever seem to get time off.’

  God, Dustin, spit it out. I did my best to make things more awkward deliberately. He brought this upon himself, after all.

  ‘Well, that’s great,’ I said, ‘being busy is such a positive sign!’ I almost laughed to myself, imagining him squirming.

  ‘Yeah, true,’ he wrote, ‘only I’m not sure it’s going to leave me a lot of time for dating, if I’m honest. You’re really lovely, but I think perhaps I need to focus on work right now.’

  Bastard.

  ‘No worries at all!’ I typed.

  Seriously? WTF? What was the point of last night?