by Amanda Egan
PM
Pissed. Pissed off and covered in salt dough from initial modelling experiments.
Figures look more like mutant aliens than school kids - don’t have natural ability for the craft.
Fenella called. Her models look more like circus freaks and she’s just about to open a second bottle of wine.
WARNING: Christmas fairs can seriously damage your health and can cause premature ageing.
Thursday 2nd October
Spent drop-off time accosting mothers for volunteers to make ‘sodding-salt-dopey-dough-models’. Heard many girlie giggles, haughty harrumphing and elongated excuses. Also pitiful procrastinations, rude refusals and irritated indignation - “How could you insinuate I have nothing better to do with my time?” - implied by the tone but, “Fantastic idea. Will definitely buy loads. Just too busy to get involved,” was what was actually said.
In other words, “Start making them, Sad-Sack, and don’t insult me by asking me to perform manual tasks ever again.”
They’ll chuck money at all manner of things, to make it look like they’re ‘doing their bit’ for the school, but won’t get actively involved with any of the graft because it’s just too common.
Went to Starbucks and had mini breakdown over a frappé latte. The caffeine brought a sudden flash of clarity. Why on earth were we bowing to the committee’s every whim and merrily going off like a couple of arse lickers? ‘Yes Shaaaron. No Shaaaron. Three Gucci bags full Shaaaron’. IT HAD TO STOP. They were bloody lucky to have us organising their fair in the first place so they had no right to keep making ridiculous demands on us and the kowtowing had to end. From now on, it was our way or no way.
Shuddered a little when I heard my mobile, just in case it was Shaaaron or Poo and I had to actually put my new-found confidence into practice.
It was Fenella.
Didn’t get a chance to get a word in edgeways as she babbled on without drawing breath.
“Lib. Just at Costa’s having coffee and fag, in the pissing cold I might add, and suddenly saw the light. We’re being treated like shit. We WILL NOT be told what to do ANY MORE. We are now revolting. We’ll start putting our Jimmy Choo’s down. Are you with me on this?”
Aah, great minds think alike. Yes, I am pretty revolting and although I don’t have a pair of Jimmy Choo’s to put down, I can make a bloody good go of it in my TK Maxx wedges.
Solidarity Sister!
Friday 3rd October
Think we felt a mixture of good and bad after our epiphany.
Happy that we’d brought the lunacy to a close (at least in our minds) and feeling a bit daft for acting like tits-in-a-trance for so long. What would we have let them throw at us next? ‘Fair must be opened by a member of the Royal family’? ‘Admittance only on presentation of La Perla underwear by the ladies and Amex Black for the gents’? ‘Please organise forthwith’.
Sat and had a coffee and fag (déjà vu) to celebrate.
Took a much needed fair-break and spent the morning preparing food for our guests tonight - F&J, Jenny and Colin.
Suddenly realised I still hadn’t opened Max’s invite to Mia’s party. Discovered it was ‘a black tie/masked ball kiddie-cocktail-do’ at the local golf course! God, give me strength - the only mask Max is interested in wearing is Spiderman and his idea of a cocktail is apple juice with fizzy water and an ice cube.
Then, horror of horrors, the postman arrived with a pretty scary looking credit card statement and an invite to a Tiny Terrors reunion at NM’s. The invite read, ‘Perry is so desperate to catch up with all his old chums and we’d love to hear how everyone’s settling in at big school. Hope to see you all next Thursday after school’.
Had another ciggie.
Decided to throw myself into an MG cookbook and let it all wash over me as I grappled with her ‘Darling Dumplings’ and ‘Succulent Breasts’ - rejected ‘Sausage in Cider’ but I doubt if she ever does.
Off to collect Max and then transform myself into silken haired beauty who’ll feed and entertain my guests with gay abandon in my delightfully bijou home.
Oops, don’t think nicotine and MG combine well.
Saturday 4th October
Great night last night - Jenny and Colin really hit it off with F&J and the conversation flowed, along with the wine.
Fenella was begging for more school horror stories and they didn’t disappoint. I find it hard to believe they’ve managed to stay at the school for so long, after the way some of the parents treat them.
Colin regularly receives calls on his mobile from parents needing ‘favours’ - one at eight o’clock at night because a mother wanted him to open up the school to get her daughter’s violin. “When I told her it wasn’t convenient, she said she’d be taking it up with the heads. Thankfully, they’re very supportive so nothing came of it - but the front of the trollop! I’m not some kind of lackey.”
He’d also had a father ring in the early hours because he’d discovered a leaky tap and thought Colin would nip round and fix it for nothing. “I kid you not! Some of them seriously think that because I’m employed by the school, their fees pay my wage so, effectively, I’m employed by them to be at their beck and call 24/7.”
Jenny laughed, “You have to be pretty hardnosed dealing with them. There are some monsters! One mum asked me at a drinks party if we had any children and I told her we have a grown up daughter who’s a hairdresser. Hmmph, you’d have thought I’d said ‘hooker’ - the look on her face was a picture and she quite blatantly turned her back on me and started talking to someone else. Obviously far too lowly a profession. How the bloody hell would these women get their requisite blonde highlights without hairdressers?”
Colin was beginning to delight in our stunned silence and was really playing to his audience. “And you can’t begin to imagine the amount of affairs going on. I’m constantly catching parents inflagrante in empty classrooms. Almost put my foot in it once because I was introduced to a couple at a ‘school do’ and just started to say, ‘But I thought you were married to …? It was only when Jen kicked me hard in the shin that I realised my mistake.”
“And then of course there’s the maths teacher, Mr Rooney. He gives any lonely mum a good servicing. All those poor frustrated women whose husbands go off on business only need to give him a call and he’s round like a shot!”
Fenella choked on her wine, “Gosh, he is rather dishy though isn’t he? When are you next away Josh? Now he could most definitely be my ‘man in reserve’.”
OK, that’s that question answered then. My Delhi Delight is her Rampant Rooney.
The evening carried on in much the same vein, with us gleaning more and more juicy snippets. Fenella rounded it off with a rendition of ‘Big Spender’ with Colin, Ned and Josh on drums, me on spoons (again! Must take up another party instrument) and Jenny performing a fake strip tease under the guise of someone called ‘Auntie Ethel’ - very disturbing!
Fifteen wine bottles in the recycling, two overflowing ashtrays and no leftover ‘MG’ tidbits - must have been a good night.
Sunday 5th October
Went to Todd’s birthday lunch and met Fenella and Josh’s families. Josh’s are all fairly sane and very friendly. Fenella’s, totally loopy but equally friendly.
Fenella’s mother, Olivia, insisted we play good old-fashioned children’s games. Not the usual like ‘Pass the Parcel’ but ‘Sardines’ and other more energetic activities. Found myself in a wardrobe with Fenella’s brother and Josh’s sister and then, later, being manhandled by Fenella’s dad during a riotous round of ‘Squeak, Piggy, Squeak’. The kids loved passing a balloon between their legs but not quite as much as Olivia enjoyed passing it to Ned. “Oh, yes. Forgot to tell you Lib. Mummy and Daddy are the most notorious flirts.” Fenella filled me in as she was cutting the cake. “They don’t mean anything by it because they’re really desperately in love. They just can’t help themselves. Once Daddy found Mummy trying to get the vicar pissed because she’d decided
she needed a challenge. Terribly funny!”
The afternoon ended with Olivia playing the piano and all of us singing nursery rhymes and children’s songs. Fenella quickly wound things up when Olivia threatened to sing some dirty ditties - think she’d had a little too much bubbly by then.
As we left she was having a ‘little restorative nap’ in the corner of the conservatory, snoring loudly and mumbling “There was a young lady called Blunt …”
Monday 6th October
Mrs S now happily making and printing Diwali cards on her PC for the end of the month. “I am now cutting and pasting like a little beauty, Libbybeta. Skunk sits next to me in class now and helps me when I am making a mistake. So like my Pritesh in many ways. I am hoping you will get to meet him soon. He is very much a lesson in not judging a face by its cover.”
God, at this rate she’ll be fixing me up with the Skunk next.
Spoke to Lou on the phone - she’s now convinced Finn has ADHD because he never listens to her. Eventually convinced her that it’s just the behaviour of a normal three year old and he’ll grow out of it. “Oh well, in that case, what’s Cam’s excuse because he still doesn’t listen,” she moaned. “Anyway, gotta go. Think Finn may have left the tap running in the sink while the goldfish is in it. I told him not to and I also told Cam to watch him. See what I’m dealing with here? Love yeh.”
Had Nic & Rick over for dinner. Filled them in on some of the funnier school anecdotes.
Rick was quite intrigued by the salt dough figures and laughed at my pathetic aliens. We Googled the company that makes them and found they charge eighteen quid each.
“That’s a huge mark-up when you consider you can make the dough for next to nothing and the only other cost is the paint and varnish.” Rick was scratching his head.
“What you thinking, Ricky-Boy?” Nic was on his case. “I know that look and it usually means trouble.”
“Well, we could help the old Libster out here and make a bit of extra dosh for ourselves. We’ve got no work on until panto’ and we’re good at this kind of thing. Come on Nic, there’s a whole heap of mums there waiting to be exploited and we’re the boys for the job.”
Figured they could churn each figure out for less than a pound and easily charge fifteen for them. “Remember Lib, if anything’s too cheap they won’t buy it ‘cos they won’t trust the quality” Rick commented.
Ned poured me a glass of wine and said, “It will make you look pretty good, Libs. Every problem they chuck at you, you solve with a wave of your wand.”
“Fairy wand, on this occasion please.” Rick giggled. “Poofs to the rescue! Oooh, thanks for the lovely grub but we’ve got to dash to start on our new venture. I’ve suddenly come over all creative. Let’s go Nickie - to the ‘Fag-Mobeel!’”
That just leaves the problem of the ridiculous ‘helper’s uniforms’ to sort out, but Fenella assures me she has a cunning plan to shut them all up - any further ridiculous requests and we have our stock standard response prepared; “Up your nose with a rubber hose.” Not very mature, and we’ll probably never use it, but it makes us laugh in our more manic moments.
Tuesday 7th October
Parent/Teachers Christmas Update meeting
Collected assorted tombola contributions from the box in the school hall this morning. All parents complying well to the regulations now - bottles of champagne, decent wine, fine malt whisky and fancy olives stuffed with delicacies. Only one item that Poo felt had to be extracted (practically with rubber gloves) - a bottle of garlic-scented olive oil! “It’s not extra virgin, Libby. Into the Harvest Festival box with it immediately. Honestly, what are some of these mothers thinking?”
Cobbled some notes together for our meeting tonight and girded our loins for what might lie ahead. We shall not be bullied, we shall not be bullied. Up your nose with a rubber hose. Up your nose …
Wednesday 8th October
Much quicker meeting last night as Fenella and I’d decided to be very much in control and not stand for any repetition, pausing, digression or general pissing around. Sounds like a round of ‘Just a Minute’.
Proudly presented our ‘uniforms’, as requested. Striped aprons with matching peaked caps from the Pound Shop! Shaaaron was horrified but after we’d calmly and succinctly presented our reasoning, she didn’t have a leg to stand on. They’re economical, free-size, unisex and achieve continuity of style. “Not exactly the height of elegance though, are they gels?” Shaaaron whined as she sat there with a cap comically perched on her head. “Oh well, I guess they’ll do the job and I won’t be wearing one. My contribution will be to spend lots of lovely money to boost the profits.”
Lady Bountiful, she ain’t!
Our ‘funny money’ was graciously accepted with lots of ‘oohing and aahing’ - anyone would have thought we’d busted the Bank of England.
The sample salt dough figure I’d brought along from Nic and Rick was met with raptures bordering on orgasmic. “Oh heavens how adorably sweet.” And “Divine, just divine. I’ll buy at least three.”
Went away feeling really quite chuffed with ourselves and had a celebratory glass or two back at Fenella’s - only had three fags so things must be on the up!
Thursday 9th October
Tiny Terror’s reunion.
Had very mixed feelings about going today. Keen to see Ruth, Beckie and the kids but just couldn’t face the thought of NM! Had so many great stories to tell the girls but couldn’t really do them justice without knowing I’d get an “I told you so,” from her.
I was met with a “Oh Libby, do come in. My, aren’t you looking well? Every inch the yummy mummy now aren’t we? Is it terribly hard for you to keep up appearances?” Almost clocked her with my ‘Moist Muffins’ but remembered to imitate the quiet diplomacy of my son with a little white lie, “No, no Marcia. We’ve settled in wonderfully and everyone at Manor House is very friendly and accepting.”
Seemed like we’d all had the same idea and taken food contributions, the memory of chipped teeth and constipation still fresh in our minds. She didn’t disappoint either - revolting looking dried up rye bread with fish paste and a plate of sludgy grey, rock hard ‘tray bake’ were gracing her table as we arrived.
We had to spend most of the afternoon listening to her prattling on about our fantastic state school system and what fine upstanding citizens her chosen school turns out.
Ruth whispered to me, “I’d heard that Perfect Perry’s had a dreadful time settling in and she’s thinking of moving him into the private sector but, of course, we won’t hear that side of the story.”
Poor PP, I wouldn’t wish school anxiety on any child and it must be hard enough for him having NM as a mother. You’d have thought he’d be glad to get out of the house in the mornings.
All the kids were really hungry after a day at school but one bite of the stale sandwiches was enough to send them running for the other offerings. My muffins were gone in about three minutes and the ‘tray bake’ was left to rot further.
Felt good to be in the company of ‘normal people’, NM aside that is. Didn’t feel like I had to pretend to be something I’m not or that I was being judged by my clothes, car or any other aspect of my lifestyle. Is that my own insecurities though?
Which reminds me, I need to go and find something suitable to wear to tomorrow’s end of half term assembly. NM doesn’t know half the work that goes in to trying to keep up with the Meemies - and I’ll be buggered if I’d ever let on - I do have my second hand pride, after all.
Friday 10th October
Can’t believe Max has completed his first half term - where did the weeks go? Just over a month to the Christmas fair and my time will become my own again. Definitely no babies on the horizon so need to start thinking of a new project to keep me occupied.
Assembly was really sweet with lots of the children receiving awards for their achievements. Max was chuffed to receive one for being a good friend and Todd got one for settling well - finally! Fe
nella and I sat there like dutifully proud mummies and dabbed at our eyes with tissues - pathetic pair that we are.
The usual excited babble from mums at collection time, just at a slightly higher decibel level because of the impending break. The general buzz was, “Oh yes, we’re off to Sardinia for the week.” And “Are you going to your villa or are you off to Wiltshire?”
Fenella and Josh are off to Tuscany and … guess what? We’ll be off to the park.
Same venue as our summer break, different weather and activities. No paddling pool but probably stomping in puddles or piles of leaves.
Not bitter though. I’ve got a week with my boy so I’m off to enjoy it - you can keep your villas and your country piles, we’ve got each other and we’ll be just fine in our muddy little puddles.
CONTRACTIONS