I decided to keep my beak clean and pecked around the Shack until Friday when I eventually decided I was going to purchase some chickens. I obtained the phone number of the local poultry farmer and gave him a ring to arrange the delivery of my new feathered friends. I was careful to arrange this at a time when Matt was away on business.
A burly, friendly man turned up and pulled onto the Shack’s drive in his tractor. We hit it off straight away. He was hilarious, making fun of me as he passed the chickens over to me feet first, squawking and flapping their wings. I didn’t have a clue what to do with them but Reg the farmer soon settled them in for me. He told me to ring him straight away if I had any problems, then left me to it. Maybe I had pecked off more than I could chew and I was flapping more than the birds. The children thought it was brilliant and spent the next hour watching the chickens to see if they laid an egg.
After tea, I rounded up the kids to help me catch the chickens and place them in my newly constructed coop for the night. If anyone had videoed this ridiculous scene they would have made a fortune – well, maybe two hundred quid – on You’ve Been Framed. We chased the chickens round and round in circles, tried to divert them with patio chairs and threw linen baskets over the top of them in a vain attempt to catch them. One had flown to the highest branch of the tree to roost and we were covered from head to toe in muck. We hadn’t caught one single clucking chicken.
I was beaten. Matt was right for once – this was a stupid idea. Even the dog stared at me as though I had totally lost the plot and then settled back down to sleep. There was no way I could waste this amount of time every evening running around after birds – that was Rupert Kensington’s job.
Telephoning Reg in a panic, I panted down the phone in sheer exhaustion. He must have thought he had a heavy breather on the line.
‘I can’t catch the chickens, Reg. I’m knackered.’
Reg was bewildered and didn’t have a clue why I was even trying to catch them.
‘I need to get them in the coop so if I don’t catch them how do I get them in?’ I quizzed.
At this point Reg was in the pub with his cricket mates and unknown to me had put my conversation on speaker-phone. I could hear the whole pub erupting with laughter when Reg announced I was a complete turkey and informed me that at dusk the chickens would strut into the coop one by one in readiness for the night. By the time I had hung up the phone, the chickens were all tucked up in bed. Thank God Matt wasn’t here to witness any of this.
Luckily for me when Matt returned home from his business trip the chickens had settled in nicely. They were like a part of the family, clucking around and laying fresh eggs every morning. It felt like Christmas when the first egg was laid – it was a miracle! Matt sat at the table with the children for breakfast and I presented them all with dippy eggs and soldiers. All except Matt, that is.
‘Where’s mine?’ he enquired.
‘What do you mean?’ I replied.
‘My egg?’ he spluttered.
‘Well because you threw all your eggs out of your basket and had an eggifit, we only bought five chickens. You haven’t got a chicken and no chicken means no egg!’
I thought it was eggceptionally funny. He looked like he was about to eggsplode! Three weeks later Matt ventured out and bought three chickens of his very own and was proud of the fact that he had his own supply of eggs.
School was relatively quiet so far this week. I continued to park in a space without any further altercations. Until Wednesday that is, which was going to be a day to remember.
I was taken by surprise when Penelope wandered over towards my space in the playground. I’d never ever spoken to her or made eye contact with her since the car parking dispute outside the school gates.
‘It’s Little Jonny’s birthday party on Saturday. Would Samuel like to come?’
I was a little shocked as I absorbed this information but was impressed that the car parking incident hadn’t meant that Samuel would be excluded from the party celebrations.
I wasn’t a fan of kids’ birthday parties to be honest and these days the parties seem all about the parents not the children.
I could imagine Penelope and Botox Bernie spending all year planning their child’s next birthday party. Of course, they would have to outdo the rest of the Playground Mafia and their previous parties. Their parties were way over the top, featuring luxurious cupcakes, expensive balloon displays and not forgetting the designer party bags.
When I was a child, you were lucky to have a birthday party at all. Any party you did have involved a simple buffet at home and games such as Pass the Parcel, Musical Statues and Pin the Tail on the Donkey. You were grateful for what you got. I could bet my life Botox Bernie and Penelope would spend at least four hundred pounds on their children’s birthday parties. Birthday parties were a status symbol and a power trip to these mothers.
I suppose the only positive thing about the parties were that the children could actually play with their friends without their book bags being rifled through. Or so I thought. According to Imogen, Little Jonny wouldn’t have a say in his party guest list. Penelope would do the inviting based on specific criteria. She would write and re-write the guest list many times, taking into consideration how well she liked the child’s mother, the intelligence level of the child and the apparent wealth of the parents. Well, she wanted Little Jonny to receive prestigious presents.
Imogen had first-hand experience of this as Penelope had neglected to invite Miles the previous year due to their personal differences, but it was awkward as the boys were still good friends at school. To top it all, Penelope used Facebook in a vindictive manner to publish a public post of details and photos of the party just to alienate Imogen. Imogen didn’t rise to it and hit the delete button. Sometimes it was like being back in the school playground ourselves.
I would rather spend my children’s birthdays with them as a family and treat them to a day out. The four hundred pounds wasted on a magician or a bloke who brings reptiles to your house to entertain the Playground Mafia’s children – while they slope off to have their nails painted – is just not for me.
Imogen had been unlucky in the past and had endured three of Little Jonny’s birthday parties when she was good friends with Penelope. She had recounted the story of the last party to me. As Little Jonny excitedly tore at the wrapping on the presents from his classmates, Penelope stood over him taking the presents from him one by one. She organised them into three piles. When Imogen asked Penelope why she had organised the presents into piles her response was priceless.
The first pile was for the expensive presents that she – not Little Jonny – didn’t want. These were to be sold on eBay which would help to pay for her next new coat. The second pile went into the unwanted present cupboard at home; these were the presents that weren’t worth much and could be recycled. She would pass them on to children that invited Little Jonny to their parties in the future. The third pile was the pile Little Jonny could keep. So out of nearly thirty presents he would usually end up with approximately six.
According to the conversations held with Imogen the night they came for the dinner at the Shack, it was alleged that Rupert Kensington had confided in Steve about his love of children’s parties. He encouraged Penelope to organise the most lavish parties and to attend all the parties their children were invited to. You may think this was strange but there was a method to his madness. The reason he loved children’s parties so much was because it meant Penelope was out of his hair for a few hours, leaving him free to let off his party popper with his latest woman. Penelope would be preoccupied for weeks before a party which meant the house was empty for Rupert to play his own party games.
I accepted Penelope’s invitation, thanked her for her kind offer and stood and wondered which dinosaur I could buy Little Jonny for his birthday. I also considered cutting out the middle-man and handing some cash directly to Penelope for her new coat – it would save her listing the present for au
ction on eBay – but I’d only got Imogen’s take on previous events.
That evening two things happened in the Shack. Firstly Matt had become quite ill of late, he was spluttering and sneezing and had continuous headaches. I packed him off to the doctor to investigate what was wrong. He arrived home two hours later clutching his allergy test results. I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading. The poor bloke was allergic to chickens.
The second was a visit from Imogen. She looked like the cat that had got the cream and was beaming from ear to ear. Imogen had just visited the post office to post her eBay parcels – probably unwanted expensive presents from Miles’ last birthday party – when she had literally bumped into Camilla.
Camilla had been in full gossip mode and couldn’t hold her water; in the strictest of confidence she enlightened Imogen that Penelope Kensington had uncovered evidence that Rupert was playing away from home. She had no qualms in spreading the gossip of Rupert’s new affair to Imogen – or anyone else for that fact – as she was a woman scorned.
Camilla wasn’t coping well with her rejection by Rupert Kensington now she had been cast aside for a newer model. Imogen knew about Camilla’s affair with Rupert; she too had spotted them in the local woods together while she walked her dog. She found it very amusing that Camilla used to pay Penelope as a child-minder to look after her child whilst she was off riding her husband in the back of her horse van.
This information was second-hand to Camilla as she had already prised the news of Rupert’s latest squeeze out of her babysitter, Wendy Barthorpe’s daughter. Imogen couldn’t help smiling to herself. In her opinion it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. As she continued to relay all this information to me, I started to feel a little sorry for Penelope. How would she face everyone at Bingo on Friday? This was becoming a frequent event for her.
According to Imogen, when her friendship had broken down with Penelope, Penelope moved on to a lady called Wendy Barthorpe. Wendy was mother to three girls and her eldest often babysat for Camilla while she was mucking about with Rupert in the back of her horsebox. As Wendy was also one of those people that looked after children, this friendship was made in heaven. Wendy had the utmost respect from everyone in the village; she was a down to earth, hard-working woman that would put herself out for anyone. She was a very energetic lady; her days were filled to the brim with activities for the children. She was always taking them swimming or entertaining them in soft play areas and frequently visited the park. She would put the average mother to shame. This was a huge change for Penelope who spent most of her child-minding days seeking attention, updating her Facebook status every two minutes while chain-smoking, before nipping off to Home Bargains to stock-up on anti-nicotine air freshener that she sprayed religiously before the children were collected by their parents.
Wendy had another good friend – Annie Carter – who was the sole carer of her ill mother. They had been friends for many years – since school in fact – and Penelope had met them at various social events around the village over the years. Annie’s mundane life – the majority of which had been spent looking after her mother – had shaped her personality into an easy going character. She was a kind hearted and wonderful woman who saw the good in everyone. Her sense of humour was infectious, she was full of fun and she smiled and giggled from the time she woke up in the morning to the time she fell asleep at night. The three of them became inseparable, spending every minute of the day together, constantly chatting on Facebook at night and enjoying frequent nights out to the pub, cinema and theatre.
Since we had arrived in the village I been shoplifting, bought chickens, hosted a dinner party and witnessed Rupert Kensington with two different women. Now I was about to come face to face with Camilla Noland.
My daughter Eva had needed a little persuasion to move from the north. She was a fantastic horse rider and her obsession with ponies had stemmed from an early age. At the present time money was a little tight for us but my parents offered to buy the children a pony; it was a little extreme but these are the lengths one must go to in order to escape from the likes of Mrs High School Musical. It wasn’t a top of the range thoroughbred, more like an old oversized donkey that only cost a couple of hundred quid.
What we needed now was a saddle and other leather paraphernalia – I believe the proper term is ‘tack’ in horsey circles. Being new to the area I enquired at the post office as to the whereabouts of the nearest saddlery. The postmaster was very knowledgeable and pointed me in the direction of the nearest saddlery which was situated a few miles away in the next town and was owned by Camilla Noland!
Driving to the saddlery I wondered if Camilla would remember me from her lunch date in the pub but, thinking about it, she hadn’t recognised me from the post office queue on the last couple of occasions. Taking a deep breath I approached the shop door, which was ajar, and I could hear voices. I was just about to stroll through the door when the conversation suddenly became very interesting and I stood still. It wasn’t my usual style to skulk around corners – that was Rupert’s speciality – but I was frozen to the spot, listening intently. Bloody hell, the conversation was crystal clear: they were discussing Rupert the stallion and his latest dalliance.
Camilla was spreading her gossip again, this time with another woman whose voice I didn’t know. Peering through the crack in the door, I didn’t recognise her either. After already hearing the same story from Imogen who had heard the story from Camilla, I still stood outside, taking it all in and waited for a good time to enter.
As the story went, apparently a few Saturday earlier Wendy Barthorpe had hosted a poker game at her house. Rupert was there – no wonder, he would poke anyone – and so was Annie. While Penelope had been smoking outside, Rupert and Annie’s eyes met over the faded green felt of the poker table. Allegedly Annie was in admiration of Rupert’s full house. She was fun; Penelope was not and Rupert became instantly attracted to her.
Inconspicuously Rupert and Annie arranged to meet the following day. Rupert’s day was already planned; he was due to collect and rev the engine of his new car, a car he had dreamed about owning since he was a little boy. It would sport his own personal number plate, alloy wheels, fog lamps and leather seats – complete with seat warmers. He wanted to test out that suspension and who better to invite along than Annie.
The next morning, luckily for Rupert, Penelope was due to attend a children’s birthday party with Little Jonny. Rupert had managed to squirm his way out of going again, clearing the way for him to take Annie for a ride in the new car. Penelope was miffed as Annabel hadn’t been invited to the party, so she would have to spend the whole time with her. Penelope droned on and on to Rupert that he should look after Annabel but nothing was going to spoil Rupert’s plans. Penelope was not pleased. If only she knew.
Rupert raced along the country lanes with Annie and they giggled and screamed in his new car. He had instantly connected with Annie and this was a far deeper connection than he ever had with Camilla Noland – which wasn’t hard, as from the conversation I was overhearing, Camilla appeared to be as shallow as a midget’s Jacuzzi. He had grown distant from Penelope, thinking she was lazy, boring and self-interested. Day in, day out, it was all about her and the amount she constantly spent on coats was driving him insane. Rupert was falling for Annie. He did fall for Annie, that very morning in Penelope’s bed while she was enjoying her cupcakes and checking out the latest craze for party bags.
Rupert was happy for the first time in a long while. The other women he had been messing about with had merely helped him survive his boring daily routine with Penelope. This was different, Annie was different. He was falling in love with Annie and he had never considered leaving Penelope before, until now. Rupert and Annie continued to see each other at every opportunity – usually on a Friday night while Penelope was off with her dabber playing Bingo at the local hall with Wendy. It also helped that Rupert mostly worked nights; well that’s what he told Penelope. He was act
ually a regular guest in the premium suite at a local hotel, which he shared with Annie. His discount card was safely tucked away in the glove compartment of his new shiny motor.
This was all according to Camilla Noland and the other woman. I was still standing at the saddlery door like a flippin’ lemon. I still hadn’t found the right time to enter.
The other lady continued. Penelope had been woken up in the night by a vibrating noise. Rupert was lying fast asleep next to her when she noticed that his phone had lit up. The display on his phone read ‘Hot Legs’ and Penelope’s heart began to race as she opened the message. She was devastated to read a text from a woman thanking Rupert for showing her his royal flush. Not sure that Penelope wanted to shout ‘Bingo’ at that particular moment.
I couldn’t stand there any longer so I walked through the saddlery door. They stopped talking immediately and glared at me; you would think they had never seen a northerner before. Although they both nearly jumped out of their skin, they didn’t appear to be too concerned as to whether I had heard their gossip or not.
‘Can I help you?’ Camilla asked curtly looking me up and down.
Her manner was very stand-offish but that’s her all over, Rupert must have had a hard job trying to loosen her up.
Camilla made a gesture to the other woman that she would only be five minutes. I would have liked to give them both a gesture but I needed a saddle and needs must. I started to make polite chit-chat, not because I wanted to but because I knew it would aggravate the hell out of her. I started off with the weather, followed by the pony I had just bought. I was friendly; in fact I made myself feel quite queasy I was being that amiable.
I piped up, ‘Nice place you have in the village.’ Camilla’s farmhouse was surrounded by acres and acres of land with the most breath-taking scenery.
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) Page 7