by Amanda Egan
“Pardon me! Stopped feeling sick now but I’m rather gassy.”
Don’t think she noticed the look of disgust shot at her by a nearby Meemie!
PM
Nic called tonight to say that it’s only a week and a half until they collect Baby Mikhail. I know he’s trying to contain his excitement to protect my feelings but I could hear the thrill in his voice.
I could also hear Rick in the background, knocking together yet more shelves for the nursery and singing ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’.
He seemed to be doing a gay adaptation of the song because the second line most definitely didn’t end in ‘clock’.
“Libster, I keep telling Rick he’s going to have to stop with the rudie songs when we become parents. He’s a nightmare! We can’t have our lad going off to nursery and reciting dirty versions of nursery rhymes”.
Agreed that wouldn’t be a great idea as I strained my ear to hear Rick’s version of ‘Wee Willie Winkie’.
They’ll be great parents just so long as they learn to tone things down a bit.
Friday 24th October
Mum called to say that she and Bert are looking after my niece, Gracie, while Elle goes to the theatre.
Funny that! She’d normally ask me to babysit.
Is she just sparing me or am I not considered to be ‘of sound mind’ at the moment?
Can’t say I actually blame her - I wouldn’t leave a baby with me at the moment, I have a terrible knack of losing them.
PM
Ned’s new job is going well and we take great delight in looking at our bank statements now. This time last year they would have been shoved hastily to the back of a drawer. Now it’s all we can do to stop ourselves framing them, with a little halogen light over the top to highlight the balance.
“Funny how things change, isn’t it Lib?” Ned said as he topped up my wine glass.
I agreed that, yes, things were very different.
“We could always try for another baby, you know. It’s not too late” he added cautiously.
Just can’t help feeling that it is too late.
Saturday 25th October
We’re going out for dinner with Fenella and Josh tonight - apart from a few cheapies with them last year, this is a first. We could never afford to go to up-market restaurants with them so it’s great to be able to keep up with the Hunter-Barnes’s and even pick up the bill.
And we’re paying Olga to babysit for us. I’ve never paid a baby-sitter in my life! Always had to rely on Mum and that usually resulted in a quid pro quo deal.
Olga’s been given strict instructions to come alone and not to bring her live-in-lover Zsa-Zsa. I may be liberal, but I don’t want my son subjected to snogging lesbians on the sofa. We’re having enough trouble dealing with the Nic and Rick baby saga.
“No, Libby. I vood not disrespect you or our friendship by bringing Zsa-Zsa. I vill be caring for your little Maxie and vatching some of your trashy British telly. I only rub Lydia-Boss-Lady’s face in my privates because she is such a bitch.”
Not a mental image I wanted to entertain.
Sunday 26th October
It would have been great last night had we not booked the same restaurant that Gestapo and Pritesh had chosen.
It really was enough to put me off my moules marinières.
Gestapo acted like an over-sexed schoolgirl and Pritesh just looked stupidly smug and pathetic.
They insisted on joining our tables together and I could see by the look on Fenella’s face that she felt the same way as me - our first fancy night out together and we get lumbered with Gestapo-on-Heat.
Had no idea that things were about to get even worse.
Within ten minutes Gestapo informed us that they were expecting the Gnome and Letchy.
“Quite a little Manor House gathering, eh gels?” she giggled as she quaffed her bubbly.
How Pritesh is managing to fund her excesses, I have no idea. His ‘White Goods Emporium’ in Wembley can’t possibly be generating that much.
Letchy’s eyes almost popped out of his head when he arrived with the Gnome and saw he had more totty to ogle than originally planned. Fenella is at that stage of pregnancy where the bump is almost easy to ignore because the knockers are wonderfully full and buoyant - and, of course, she’d done everything to disguise her tummy and accentuate her couple of positives. Her dumplings were boiling over in a flimsy gypsy top and Letchy thought all his Christmases had come at once. The Gnome looked suitably put out but I would have thought she’d be used to it by now.
“Well, ladies, isn’t this nice?” he leered at us as he spoke. “And how lovely for you Ned, to be able to play with the big boys now you’ve got the cash to flash. Perhaps you’d like to join me at the old ‘Spearmint Rhino’ one night? I’m a regular there you know. All the ladies know me.”
Yeah, I bet they do.
Ned declined the offer - clever husband - and we continued with ordering our food. It was the usual debacle of no carbs, sugars or salts for Gestapo and I could see the waiters gradually losing their patience.
Fenella didn’t disappoint and asked Gestapo what she could possibly find to live on if she was so particular. “I mean apart from Bollie and Moët, what else do you partake of? Lettuce leaves? And, forgive me, but why come out for a meal at a top-notch restaurant if you don’t actually eat anything?”
Nearly choked on my white wine. Fenella has the effortless knack of articulating what everyone else is thinking. And she says it so innocently and without batting a perfectly applied eyelash.
What’s more, she gets away with it. Gestapo merely looked down her nose-job at her and said, “Well, not all of us have a yearning to be Rubenesque.”
“Oh, Sweedie, Rubenesque, how lovely! Yes, Josh does love a bit of flesh to grab onto when humping, don’t you my love? Nothing worse than rogering a stick is there?”
And that more or less set the tone for the evening. Had Fenella been on the booze, things may have got far worse, but her wit was so razor sharp Gestapo didn’t stand a chance and eventually had the grace to back down.
It was poetry to watch her squirm and turned a disastrous evening into a bearable one.
Went back to F&J’s for coffee and vowed to flee the local area next time we have a night out.
Monday 27th October
Back to school
Max went happily back to school this morning, fighting fit and happy to be back with all his friends.
Dropped him at the gates, proudly wearing my charity shop Chloé top.
Had the smug smile wiped off my face when Shergar wound down her Range Rover window and shouted, “Nice top Libby! Chloé, three seasons ago isn’t it? Gave mine to the charity shop. Laters!”
Grrrr! That is just so off-pissing!
PM
Spent most of the day going through notes and email for CCL fundraising. Feel a bit of an old hand now, as nothing seems to faze me like it did last year. Some of the oddest requests and suggestions don’t even touch me now and I shrug them off like water from the proverbial duck’s back.
Even these beauties! … (Although I did allow myself a titter and then forwarded them to Fenella for a laugh.)
Shergar has requested that we have a celebrity host for the Auction of Promises. Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig have been suggested but she’d settle for Boris Johnson.
Well, she won’t take too kindly to Fenella’s mother doing it then, will she? The fact that she use to work in an auction house, and is providing her services for no fee, won’t count for anything. Boris, indeed!
Several Meemies have joined forces and feel that not all the fundraising profits should be applied to CCL. They have requested that part of the money should go towards purchasing a school bus which will then pick up children from various points around south west London and also drop them home in the afternoon.
Anything to get out of the school run. They just don’t realise that this proposition isn’t financially viable for a school
of our size and the insurance would be phenomenal.
A request has been made that a classroom be set aside at the Christmas fair for a Botox practitioner. Some ‘terribly busy mummies’ feel it would be the ideal opportunity to catch up on a bit of pre-Christmas plumping. A few other mummies have frowned upon this idea (well I guess they would have done, if they could!) as they feel “matters of such delicacy should be kept private”.
Although the idea sucks, I find it hilarious that some mummies feel that they can keep their dabblings a secret. We can spot the Botox junkies at a hundred yards. Ned calls them the Frozen Addicts (as opposed to the hardened ones). It would be a great little money earner but, at a kid’s Christmas fair, wholly inappropriate. Damn!
Gestapo has come up with what she feels is a “brainwave” to stop people giving unsuitable gifts to the tombola. “Each donated item should have a tag with the contributor’s name on it. A kind of ‘name and shame’ incentive. No one will dare to leave a jar of Robinson’s jam or Boots Bubble Bath if they feel they will be outed.”
Why am I surprised? We won’t be using her idea and, furthermore, all contributions will find their way to the stall this year and the rejects will not be palmed off to the local OAP’s for next year’s Harvest Festival. I’m sure we must have poisoned half of them with the ‘past sell by date’ goods last time.
Tuesday 28th October
Fenella and I had a quick recap to bring me up to speed with what I’d missed at the last meeting.
“To be perfectly honest, Lib, it wasn’t a great deal. Most of what we covered could have been dealt with in about an hour but we were still there until ten.”
We now have all our entries for the Poetry and Prose Anthology and, once the winning cover design has been chosen, it can all go off to the printers.
The jobs Fenella and I have been left to deal with this term are:
Source extra gifts for the Auction of Promises - date now booked for 14th November.
To add to the already vulgar list we started with, we now have matching men and women’s Cartier watches, a year’s membership to The Harbour Club, a bottle of 50-year-old single malt whisky valued at two and a half grand, two pairs of Manolos and a voucher for Vivienne Westwood. Finding it difficult to come up with any more ideas. How can we go close to matching this insanity? Fenella has said she’ll sort through her wardrobe and find a few unused designer handbags (sneaky purchases hidden from Josh but superfluous to her actual needs, as with her collection of hats) but I’m afraid I don’t have that luxury. Don’t think a third-hand M&S clutch will cut the mustard, somehow.
Organise the food and drink stall for the Christmas fair.
After last year’s fiasco with ridiculously over-priced smoked salmon bagels and anchovy pizzas which ran at a loss, we’re playing it safe and giving the kids what they want - good quality hot dogs, hot chocolate, crisps and candyfloss. We’re also making huge vats of mulled wine to get the parents tiddly enough to part with their cash. Our ideas were poo-pooed last year but we’re not newbies anymore and we’ve stood our ground. We’ve also agreed to man the stall for the full event - none of this swapping every hour - we’ll see it through to the end and hopefully make a huge profit and prove we were right all along.
Plan a drinks reception in the school hall for next month to welcome new parents and give them the opportunity to get to know others.
This one’s a doddle for old hands like us. The wine is ordered, caterers booked for canapés and good old Jenny (lovely school secretary and now friend) has volunteered her services for waitressing, along with hubby/long suffering school-caretaker Colin. Fenella and I have decided we’ll pay them well for the night. They shouldn’t be treated like lackeys (as they often are) and I know the extra cash will come in handy for them.
It’s good to feel in control this year. I guess because it’s our second time around, we’re kind of taking it in our stride, but it’s also such a relief to have handed over the reins of the Christmas fair to Shergar and Barbie.
Slightly concerned that they appear to be a little vague every time we ask for progress updates but we’ll leave it in their hopefully capable French manicured hands.
Wednesday 29th October
Max came home very excited today and desperate to tell me all about his day.
The following conversation resulted in my blood boiling:
“Mummy, me and Todd have got a new friend. He only started this week and he’s so cool! He can play the piano really good and me and Todd are in charge of looking after him - we love him. Can we have a play-date?”
Play-date? Oh how I hate that term - sounds like Hugh Heffner might be involved in some sordid kind of way and I need to get my bunny tail out.
“Yes of course Maxie, you can have your new friend home for tea and we’ll invite Todd too. What’s his name?”
“He’s called Solomon and everyone else in the class is really mean to him.”
“What d’you mean, mean to him? Why?”
“They were all saying they didn’t want to be his friend and didn’t want him to sit next to them at lunch. That’s being mean, isn’t it? Just because he’s not the same colour as us.”
Is racism the latest ugly trait to raise its head at Manor House?
Thursday 30th October
Got to the school gates early for pick-up today so that I could hang around and have a natter with Fenella - hadn’t had a chance to call her today and was desperate to get her take on the racial issue.
I was just looking around to see if I could spot her, avoiding the eyes of the usual cliques discussing beauty treatments or the Harrods sale, when I spotted the most stunning, leggy female with beautifully glowing skin the colour of Bournville chocolate.
I instantly felt her discomfort - I could smell her feeling of ‘not belonging’. That was me last year. These mothers were doing nothing to welcome her - she was invisible to them. Although she was so beautiful, I found it hard to believe she could go unnoticed by anyone!
I decided to make my move and the look on her face was a combination of shock and disbelief.
She’s called Patience. Her son is, of course, Solomon and she’s a single parent.
When Fenella arrived, late as usual, and reeking of San Tropez tan, she instantly shook Patience’s hand and said how pleased she was to meet her and that she’d loved hearing all about Solomon and his fantastic piano playing from Todd.
Patience looked relieved and delighted to finally have some friendly faces to talk to but it didn’t stop her noticing the Meemies whispering and turning their backs on us.
PM
Spoke to Ned about the school problem and asked him what he thinks we should do.
“Well, if it really is a case of racism, it needs to be brought to the attention of Hinge & Bracket immediately. You’ve got to get your facts straight first though, Lib. It’s a tricky one and you’re going to have to tread carefully.”
Obviously, he’s right. I’ll sleep on it and see what Fenella and Patience have to say when we all get together for tea tomorrow.
Friday 31st October
Halloween and Mum’s Birthday! (so fitting)
Put in a quick call to Mum to wish her a happy one and to see if she’d got my flowers and gift voucher.
“Yes Libby, I did, thank you. And I had lovely ‘proper presents’ from your sisters. So thoughtful when someone goes to the trouble of actually choosing a gift for you.” (dig,dig!) “You really should pick up the phone and speak to them you know. So you lost a baby! You still have an obligation to your sisters and to your niece, Baby Gracie - you can’t just pretend she doesn’t exist.”
Why do I tolerate her? She always rubs me up the wrong way - it’s her talent. And to think I was hoping that moving in with Bert might mellow her! Fat chance.
“Anyway Libby, I’m going to have to dash now. Bert’s taking me out to lunch and then for a spot of shopping. I’ll see if I can choose my own present with your voucher, shall I?”
Remembered why I ring her so infrequently - it always leaves me in a bad mood and feeling unloved.
To cheer myself up I decided to have a little impromptu Halloween tea for Max, Todd, Charlotte and Solomon and I spent the day grabbing stuff from the Pound Shop (old habits!) and decorating the kitchen with pumpkins and witches.
Fenella picked Max up from school for me and arrived with Todd, Charlotte, Patience and Solomon.