A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother: A laugh-out-loud funny novel about life at the School Gates (A School Gates Comedy Book 1)
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A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother
A laugh-out-loud funny novel about life at the School Gates
Christie Barlow
Contents
Also by Christie Barlow
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. January
2. February
3. March
4. April
5. May
6. June
7. July
8. August
9. September
10. October
11. November
12. December
Letter from Christie
The Misadventures of a Playground Mother
Kitty’s Countryside Dream
Also by Christie Barlow
Copyright
Also by Christie Barlow
The Misadventures of a Playground Mother available to pre-order now
For my husband Christian, my children, Emily, Jack, Ruby and Tilly, Mum and Dad and my loyal companion Woody.
Acknowledgments
In respect to this particular book, I owe a debt of gratitude to many people for their belief, encouragement and continuous support. My agent Madeleine Milburn who believed in me, my husband and children who have always supported me and my lovely friends who have put up with me.
A special mention to the wonderful Christian Barlow, Mum and Dad, Anita Redfern, Haley Hill, Lucy Davey, Chantal Chatfield, Kim Nash, Catherine Snook, Sue Stevens, Suzanne Toner, Nicola Rickus, Sarah Lees, Bev Smith. Alison Smithies, Andrew Nutley, Ilona Hampson and Sarah Yeats who have always been on hand in person or at the end of a telephone listening to plot dilemmas and their everyday support has not gone unnoticed. Thank you.
Dreams can come true.
Warmest wishes
Christie x
Introduction
So this was it, today had finally arrived. The day we had been looking forward to for so long. I was making a big move, from a reasonably well-to-do part of the north to the rolling hills and valleys of the countryside. Well, to put this into some kind of perspective, I was moving from a half-decent detached house in the north of England to a dilapidated shack that had land and lots of potential in a southern country village. A glamorous lifestyle is definitely one I do not lead but, my Lord, an eventful one it was about to become.
My name is Rachel Young and this was an incredibly courageous step for me. I’m married to Matt and we have four children, Eva, Samuel, Matilda and Daisy. We had thought long and hard about the merits of such a move for a long time but once the decision had been made, I was eager for it to happen. The move was intended to improve the quality of our family life and allow us to spend more time together, away from the routine of the rat-race and the monotony of the one-upmanship that plagued our lives on our modern, executive-home estate. The removal truck was bursting at the seams with all our belongings, the side-effect of years and years engaged in the real-life struggle to keep up with the Jones’. The car was packed with four children and numerous animals, including our standard poodle that was the spitting image of my grandmother. Just for the record my grandmother wasn’t covered in black curly hair but she did resemble one of the blokes from the Two Ronnies and so did the dog but I can’t actually explain why!
Matt was due to follow in a day or two, once our house sale had completed and he had wrapped up some loose ends at work. At least that’s what he had convinced me; he was probably banking on escaping from the unpacking and shelf-erecting and having a few final nights in the pub with his mates, without the threat of earache from me. And what work did he have to wrap up anyway? He was a business consultant who spent most of his time on clients’ sites or working from home, he was hardly ever in the office. That’s why the move would have little effect on him, he could do his job from anywhere, as long as there was access to the Internet, taxis and trains.
As we pulled off I thought I would feel sad, I thought I would be fighting back the tears. I got married here, all my kids were born here and my friends lived here – but no.
I revved the engine and steered the car round the corner and there they were as usual, the group that gathered here every morning for their daily dose of gossip. My friends – well that was what they liked you to think. These people were no more than my acquaintances; the women I had the unfortunate pleasure of crossing skipping ropes with on a daily basis. The worst breed of humans that one could meet – primary school mothers – better known to the likes of you and me as the Playground Mafia.
For the last twelve months I felt that my life had been catapulted onto another planet – Planet School. I thought it would be lovely to meet new people with children of the same age as mine. I thought coffee mornings would be a great way to escape from household daily chores, to sit and converse with people who had similar interests. But these people were a different breed. The fifteen minutes that they spent in the playground dropping off their sprogs had taken over their lives. These mothers were the kind who drove their Range Rovers two hundred yards to school trying to give the impression that they were something special. These mothers constantly tried to outdo each other with their fake Gucci handbags, blonde hair extensions and their torrid bright pink nail varnish. It was a competitive world out there and even more so in the playground. These mothers chose names such as Gabriella and Troy for their children, after the main characters in High School Musical. These mothers should not – I repeat not – be allowed in the real world and should certainly not be trusted with a Range Rover.
It was apparent these mothers changed their outfits numerous times during the day; their afternoon pick-up apparel was always different to the morning drop-off attire. I, on the other hand, had no qualms about turning up with unwashed hair and baby sick over my shoulder whilst wearing my worn-out trainers.
Unbelievably, the highlight of their day is 3.15pm, when Troy skips out of the classroom into the playground clutching his new reading book. His mother’s smugness is duly noticed by all the other mothers standing in the playground, her shrieks of delight echoing all around.
With his maths skills more advanced than Carol Vorderman and his seat on Mastermind already scheduled in, the mother stands there as proud as punch.
You can hear the shuffling of feet and the resentful whispering increasing in volume of the disgruntled mothers of those without a reading book and their faces slowly start to turn crimson. At this point you can imagine the word and timetables charts immediately being Blu-Tacked to the back of the kitchen door as soon as they return home from school. Their extra-curricular activities completely abandoned until they have secured first position on the reading scheme.
It’s times like this when you wish children would turn around and say, ‘Mum, it’s not about you; I’m five years old, why can’t I just play?’
It crossed my mind to pull the car over for one last goodbye. Actually it crossed my mind to run the bloody lot of them over but I did neither. I delivered a quick hand wave and put my foot down. It is times like this I would love to be driving a Range Rover too instead of my clapped out Citroën Picasso that had lost its va-va-voom some time ago.
I knew I would be the talk of the town for at least the next fifteen minutes. They would engineer some implausible story about why I was relocating to the country. I had actually just returned from a six-month stay in hospital after being injected twice a day just to stay alive
. I had given birth to my fourth child, Daisy, and the whole pregnancy had taken its toll in many areas and changed my viewpoint on life. You only get one life, so live it. I had no intentions of spending the rest of my days in this place.
Don’t get me wrong, the house I was leaving behind was fabulous. I had some lovely memories there but it hadn’t felt like home for the last couple of years, well since the creepy bloke next door moved in. I spent most of my days dodging him, I’m always up for seeing the good in people but I couldn’t find any in him. This bloke thought he was an International Sex God and would take every opportunity to take hold of my hand and give it a quick squeeze whilst peering down my top.
Every time he held a conversation with me his innuendos made me want to projectile vomit all over his open-buttoned shirt onto his tanned waxed chest.
This bloke was called Charles. He looked like a Charles if you close your eyes and picture a Charles in your mind, that’s exactly what he looked like. I have three subjects that spring to mind when I think of this bloke – trees, water beds and New Year’s Eve.
Charles was married to Lois but he had absolutely no resemblance to Superman whatsoever. She was a lot younger than him, give or take twenty years or so. Her character was that of a timid mouse, never making eye contact and constantly scuttling in and out of her house as quickly as she could. If Lois didn’t have to speak she wouldn’t, unlike Charles. It surely wasn’t a coincidence that every time I pulled my car onto the drive he was always there, loitering. You can’t help but laugh that I had begun to wear polo neck jumpers, even in the middle of summer, just so he didn’t have the opportunity to peek at my chest. Matt thought it was highly amusing at first and suggested that I should be flattered other men found me attractive. Other men might have been a compliment but Charles really wasn’t much of a man – or a compliment – and certainly no Gary Barlow or David Tennant. Charles was surely well into his sixties, not an appealing prospect for a thirty-four year old; clearly like most men, he had an eye for the younger woman.
Matt’s opinion of Charles was soon about to change.
Charles had a thing about the trees in our back garden. These trees became the bane of my life. Charles would loiter outside the house day after day, month after month to discuss the trees. These trees were situated in the corner of our garden, just outside the patio doors. According to Charles, their branches hung down over his side of the fence and were blocking the light to his fish pond. To the average person the solution would have been simple. He just needed to trim the branches back, but Charles, being a little unreasonable, wanted them completely removed.
Understandably my patience was running a little low. With a new baby, not much sleep, three other children and Matt who still demanded his weekly attention, trees were simply not my priority. I’d even started to dream about trees, chainsaws and timber!
One day after an afternoon trip to the supermarket, I arrived home to find my garden stripped of trees. The lunatic of a man had chopped them back so bloody far I could see his pond, which meant only one thing – he could see into my living room.
I was furious.
My mother has brought me up to be polite and always respect my elders but this was one of those times I was thankful she lived miles away, so she couldn’t hear the abuse I hurled over the fence. Usually Charles wouldn’t have heard me for the trees but on this occasion he heard everything, because the bloody trees had gone!
My head was splitting and quite frankly I’d had the day from hell. My body lacked sleep, the tumble dryer was bust – a story I will come back to – and the Playground Mafia had neglected to invite me to their latest quasi posh luncheon.
Obviously I didn’t drive the right car, have children on the right reading books or own a fake Gucci handbag. I wasn’t in the ‘In Crowd’ but who decides they are the ‘In Crowd’ anyway?
That night, I took myself off to bed hoping for a couple of hours’ sleep before Daisy was due her feed. I didn’t really ask for much in life, just sleep. Unfortunately there was no sleep on the cards for me tonight. No sooner had I fallen asleep when I was woken by the sound of distinct pan-piped music. I ventured downstairs to find Matt had done his usual trick of falling asleep on the couch watching Match of the Day. It’s funny how nothing wakes him; even the baby screaming and the dog howling along to her cries does little to disturb his slumber.
After flicking Matt’s ear and placing an After Eight mint wrapper in his open mouth, he gave a choking sound and finally opened his eyes.
I think he thought his luck was in, until I mouthed the words, ‘Not a bloody chance, feed the baby.’
I followed the sound of the strange music and discovered it was filtering through the patio doors. After locking the howling dog in the utility room I made my way towards the back of the house. The music was definitely coming from the garden so I sneaked a peep from behind the dining room curtains – and shut them again instantly! Was this for real? Had I actually just seen what I thought I had seen? I beckoned to Matt to turn off the big light and move his backside quick, reminding him that his luck still wasn’t in, just so there was no misunderstanding.
As we glimpsed through the curtains again my stomach lurched. We were greeted by a sight that no woman should be subjected to: Charles and Lois, dancing to music around their garden, completely naked.
Taking a deep breath I looked at Matt. There was no mistaking my firm, matter of fact tone. ‘Tomorrow get your backside to the garden centre and buy the largest, tallest trees you can find. Oh, and on your way back, call into the estate agents, make an appointment, we are putting the house up for sale.’
Our cul-de-sac wasn’t all bad. Our other neighbour was a lovely lady called May. She was the kindest, most genuine person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Matt was away a lot on business trips and May would always look after me, making sure I was all right with my brood of kids. Every time we booked a holiday, May was the first one to offer to look after my mini zoo, which consisted of two cats, one mad standard poodle, guinea pigs and rabbits. One of my cats I named Suggs after my obsession for the lead singer of Madness. He was certainly not blessed with the good-looking gene. In fact if the truth be known he was the ugliest cat anyone had ever set eyes on. Unfortunately, he had taken a dislike to babies and the crying sound they made. When Daisy was brought home from the hospital he wasn’t impressed at all; with a look of contempt and a meow of disgust he dived straight through the cat flap and took up permanent residence at Aunty May’s. I couldn’t blame him, it was a no brainer. She fed him the best fish, hopefully straight from Charles’ pond.
Fergus by contrast was the most beautiful of cats but her life unfortunately ended in a complete spin – in the tumble dryer. What a stupid place to take a nap – why did she think it was a good idea to sleep on the wet washing? Tumble dryers no longer have a place in my life.
It was official. The house was up for sale. I knew the minute the ‘For Sale’ board went up that the Playground Mafia would be buzzing around like blood-sucking mosquitoes. They would try to extract the information from anyone to discover the reason we were moving.
They didn’t disappoint me. Unfortunately, one of the Playground Mafia sent me a text accidentally. It probably should have gone to Mrs High School Musical. According to the text my house was up for sale because I was getting divorced – Matt had left me for the woman in the local kebab shop. Other rumours circulating were that I was divorcing him because I had changed my sexual preference – and was sleeping with the woman in the kebab shop. To put you all straight, neither of us like kebabs! It was simple – nothing sinister, and sorry to disappoint – we just wanted a new life in the country away from hair extensions, fake pink nails and anyone whose kids were called Gabriella or Troy.
This one morning I had trudged to the primary school with my feet stuffed in my Wellington boots, wearing my dishevelled, moth eaten duffle coat which was thrown over the top of my PJs. I had begun to arrive at the dreaded school gate
s as late as possible. Every morning I met my normal friend Emma on the corner of the road. She was in the same boat as me. Her husband was also apparently having an affair with the woman in the kebab shop. Without a doubt the Playground Mafia lacked creativity with their rumours.
Emma had been my friend for six months, my ally at the school gates. She was a copper on maternity leave, a lovely, down to earth person who kept herself to herself, the exact antithesis of the Playground Mafia. Emma and I braved the school run together, metaphorically crossing off each day until the next school holiday. It felt like we were under constant scrutiny when we dropped our children at the school gates and usually with good reason too; on an almost daily basis we were subjected to the looks of disgust and muffled whispering of the Playground Mafia as they analysed our dress sense.
I couldn’t begin to imagine the time they woke up in the morning to re-apply their torrid pink nail varnish or untangle their hair extensions. There would be no time to go to bed, which was unfortunate because it was apparent some of them really did need their beauty sleep. Who are these people actually trying to impress? It’s not as though there are any famous fathers at the school. It was rumoured that one child’s uncle was Bez from the Happy Mondays but believe me no Monday at this school was happy – or any other day for that matter.
I was completely knackered with the arrival of the new baby and it had only just crossed my mind to let Emma know my house was going up for sale. As we approached the corner of the close, Emma and I witnessed the estate agent hammering the ‘For Sale’ sign into the ground of my front garden. It was official. I would soon be asked questions – why, where and when we would be moving.
It was just at that moment Emma had the unfortunate pleasure of witnessing Charles, the International Sex God, in action. There he was leaning out of his bedroom window scooping out buckets of water – and I mean buckets – while semi-naked. Well, due to the brickwork we could only hope he was semi-naked. Charles was yelling down at us for help. I wasn’t feeling in a heroic mood and certainly wasn’t in the frame of mind to venture into his house to find out what all the commotion was about.