F12 was given last Thursday and Friday to spend at home as Study Leave prior to his Year 7 exams which start today.
“That’s not fair,” grumbled T14, “Why should he get two days at home watching television?”
“He’ll be working,” I said primly. If wishes were horses ... God knows there was plenty to do.
“Shut up, T14,” said F12. “Stop doing me down. What about my self-esteem?”
A child more possessed of self-esteem is hard to imagine.
We had woefully underestimated the amount of revision to be done. And when I say we, I mean he. I had been snapping and nagging and whining for weeks, let alone drip-feeding wisdom throughout the year (“if you’d just read through your notes each night...”)
My friend, G – efficient, son in F12’s class – produced a revision timetable: greater love hath no better definition than that such a thing is then shared with the competition. But the days slipped by and the amount due to be done was daily piggy backed onto the next day, and then the next, and then the next week. The probs with attending a school which covers Key Stage 3 in two years, and not the more normal three. It soon stacks up.
So these Study Days were allotted and pretty soon the rumours went round among Boy Parents that the Girls were deep in Study-Sleepovers and were revising in pairs.
G texted: “makes you want to vom.”
We were taunted by the star charts they would make for each other, the curly clouds in different felt pens, the issuing to each other of little hearts and flowers in mutual reward; their resolve just to do one more hour, ok, let’s make that two. Giggle giggle, little hug, and noses back to the books.
In stark comparison to Boy Work: Pokémon and lolling on the sofa.
G texted: “the girls are just too aggressive with it all. Have visions of them swottily driving up the class averages and poor boys impaling themselves later on guilt spikes. Bloody girls!”
We agreed. It was ghastly. We imagined the shiny eyes, the thrilled faces, the focus. It was easy to picture the perfect recitation of every irregular verb going, the creation of nifty acronyms. It was official. The girls were far too keen and high-achieving and committed, and in their spare time wedded to their violins and welded to their hockey sticks.
Our only hope lay in the time-wasting intrinsic in the colour coding, the glitter pens and the opportunities they would already be taking for laying down excuses against not coming top.
G texted: “every little helps.”
I texted: “there will be some, surely, awash with headaches and leg aches and lies and general boy-esque slack reasons for not getting on with it?”
F12 pfaffed about making some noxious brew and calling it coffee.
I texted: “There’s value in them getting a raw score, not just biased in favour of excessive revision.”
F12 went upstairs to tackle BBC Bitesize. Pokémon-type noises soon issued from what is laughingly called the Study.
G texted: “Some will not be working too hard, I am sure. I am not going to worry any more. Have wasted time on maps and now see maps not included in list from school. Feck.”
I texted: “Have jettisoned music. Attempting history tomorrow, but languages are going to have to fend for themselves.”
On the Friday, I had to take the car in first thing to the garage. The bit hadn’t arrived. Surprise. So it was Tesco for me and then home, drowning in bags to find F12, sitting in his pyjamas and a long Wee Willie Winkie hat, watching “The Simpsons,” a worrying mug of hot chocolate slopping about cheerfully above the pale carpet.
“Why aren’t you doing your maths! And get that cup out of here!” I screeched so gnat-high that it was clearly off his hearing range.
He threw his hands in the air. “What do you expect?” he said, “I need supervision. I’m not to be trusted.”
I headed off the hot chocolate and denied physics its triumph.
So I set him about his history and, some time later – after, in fact, another trip to the garage – went to check on him. He was deep in Shaman lore and the Cro-Magnon cave paintings. I twitched. Whither Tudors?
“Have you heard of this tribe?” he asked, pointing me to a page in his book.
I was soon drawn in. It was fascinating: early spirituality, the Sungir burial ground, the Ain Ghazal clay collection, the moundbuilder sites.
“You’re meant to be doing the Norman Conquests, really and the monasteries, Henry VIII, just the British stuff,” I said weakly. I hated it. Denting his enthusiasm and dragging the second child in as many weeks back from something more interesting, back to bloody Henry VIII: I bet he never let himself be dragged anywhere else. What we don’t know about Anne Boleyn and her 6th finger isn’t worth knowing. The curriculum returns to it again, and again.
It represents everything that I hate about modern education, that it no longer is that, e-ducere, to lead out, but e-shove-in-o.
I gave him The Tudors, he went off with The Greeks.
G texted: “on a major cull. Too much to do. Stopping for lunch at 2. D counting the minutes. Need wine.”
I texted: “F feeling confident. Heart plummets.”
I came across him in the sitting room. Lying on his back and talking to himself.
“Don’t you think you should be revising?” I said.
“No, darling. I don’t.” Darling! He stood up, “I’m going to make some coffee.”
E walked through the kitchen as F12 was mopping up the sideboard.
“Tell him to revise,” I hissed.
“When do his exams start?” E asked, surprised.
FFS
They’re in there now, puzzling over geography.
Is there a grimmer subject than geography? And so much of it, I know now; know, that is, in terms merely of the title of topics we actually know nothing about: isotherms and tectonics, relief and settlements. Clueless, he’ll sit there, the false balloon of self-belief swiftly fizzling flat. Will he even remember to read the instructions, those hellish requirements to do one from Section A, etc?
Need I say that I’m dreading the fall-out, the public reading of results, the girls writhing smugly from positions of colour-co-ordinated success? The boys glowering and baffled. I can see it all. Not for nothing did my old boss call me Cassandra. But some lessons you just have to learn yourself. As F12 is about to find out.
Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts
Monday, 13 June 2011
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
brmm brmm
Phut. Came a noise and the car went dark, as the electrics went kaput. Suddenly bereft of any chance of aimless fiddling, the only things I wanted to do were play the radio, light a fag and fiddle with the electric mirrors. None of these fine pastimes were to be mine.
True loss, however, came in driving around. I no longer knew what time it was (lost Swatch), and, more importantly, I no longer knew where I was because Tom-Tom didn’t work. The fag lighter is used just for Tom-Tom (so don’t get your wig wet, father) and here I was, stranded wherever I was which, sadly, was Gloucester. Gloucester for those lucky enough not to know, is twinned in motoring spirit with Swindon (home of the mini-roundabout). It majors in proud provision of characterless dual carriageways and big scary roundabouts. The kind to have traffic lights on them so that you can’t slide round to the third exit; instead you have to do it in staggered jumps to reach the right lane each time. Really rather scary.
I made it to a Halfords, like the Jews to the promised land, thinking, like my idol the little red hen, that I would do fix it all by myself. Fool. Halfords got ready to laugh. They paved the way with signs saying they could fit bulbs and things. At a charge.
I strolled busily to the fuse section and stared, like the dog at a Latin primer at the stuff on offer. All so confusing. A book on fixing a Cortina circa 1983? no probs. A plethora of air fresheners in a range of designs? Be my guest. A fuse for a vaguely modern car? No way, sucker.
So I went to find a man. There were none; and then there were 2, demonstrating baffling teamwork with a roll of tape where none seemed needed. I smiled as if at two Teletubbies, and started my explanation.
“Can’t help you, ‘fraid,” one smirked, “We’re work experience.” The ‘sorry’ came as an afterthought, delivered with a tone close to mirth. Pissed off customer? Job well done. The lad clutched his roll of tape importantly. My smile stiffened into something sickly and not entirely pleasant.
I found the desk.
Two lads were chatting by the till.
"Don’t let me interrupt you,” I said eventually, nice with a little ice. I launched back into my explanation.
“Oh we can’t help you,” one said.
“God forbid,” I said, “Silly me.” The boldness conferred upon a middle aged woman denied access to her Tom-Tom via a teeny tiny fuse and a bored jobsworth.
“I mean, we can. But we have to charge you.”
But of course.
So I strode from the shop in a WTF way, scuttled homewards, bowed to the inevitable, and called in on the dealership. DIY proving yet again to be a waste of bloody time.
The dealership has been taken over by a smarter car-breed since last time and accessing it off the, yup, dual carriageway called for lots of swearing, missed stabs at the slipway and dangerous u-turns. In I went to this vaulted glass palace with its marble floors and maple coffee tables, its playstations and spreads of magazines – Lexusland or MercCity or whatever it is – feeling scruffy and out of place. A sentiment possibly echoed by the Service Manager who bustled over swishily as if about to invite me to dance while at the same time doing his damnedest to steer me into a dark corner. I nearly curtsied.
“What seems to be the problem?” he purred.
I told him. I said that there was no ‘seemed’ about it, but that a fuse had blown and could I buy a new one, please.
He sashayed off to consult his screen, peering with due importance over half moon specs and tapping at the keyboard with a manicured mitt.
“Gavin?” he trilled. Gavin fetched Mike. They muttered.
Mike lent Shakespearean sorrow to the proceedings. He knew his place and maybe didn’t mingle much with such as the Service Manager. He bent mournfully over an oily rag which he fed from hand to hand and said that it would be an hour before they’d have a chance even to look at the car; only he didn’t call it a look, he called it Undertaking A Diagnostic Survey. Which would take at least an hour.
Dancing Service Manager let me hear all this and then said it again, since we all know that monkeys with rags don’t impart useful information to customers, even if they are plebs, only Service Managers do this.
“I don’t think it needs one of those,” I said, “it’s a fuse.”
“We’re not ruling a fuse out,” he said, glancing at Mike in an urgent, important, manly, way for corroboration, “But we’ll need to Undertake A ...”
“A Diagnostic Survey,” I finished.
“Yes,” he said.
“Which will take at least an hour?” I said.
“Yes,” they both said.
“So, we’re looking at how much?” I asked
“?”
“What’s it likely to cost?”
“Hard to say at this stage. It depends on the Diagnostic Survey, which is at least an hour and then … would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Forget it,” I said slightly tersely, springing into my WTF stride again and thrilling myself by managing the big glass doors without weeping or trapping my hand.
I vowed to get used to no Tom-Tom, no fiddling with mirrors, no clock, no CD, but it was hard going and the journey home was a long ten minutes.
I called in, on spec, at the local garage. It’s a bit of a mess, with no work experience, no entrance hall, no tea and coffee, no magazines. But, lo, a man in a shirt and tie bounded out helpfully from the portacabin hut.
What strange set up was this? No being avoided, ignored, patronised or passed down the line. Weird.
“Let’s take a look,” he said. See! A look. All I wanted was a look.
I played hand maiden to his He-Man and we fiddled with the glove compartment and located the fuse box hidden high above it, and he prised it out and stared it and then said, “Give me a minute.”
Then he ran back to me, like a chap in an advert and inserted the fuse and smiled and said, “Start her up then.”
So I did and all the lights and the mirrors and the clocks and the radio came beaming into life and I smiled the smile of the easily pleased and sighed a happy sigh.
“Thank you so much!” I gushed.
He looked a little surprised at my pleasure.
“It’s been a long afternoon,” I said. “Let me know what I owe you?”
“For a fuse?” he said, puzzled. “Nothing at all.”
True loss, however, came in driving around. I no longer knew what time it was (lost Swatch), and, more importantly, I no longer knew where I was because Tom-Tom didn’t work. The fag lighter is used just for Tom-Tom (so don’t get your wig wet, father) and here I was, stranded wherever I was which, sadly, was Gloucester. Gloucester for those lucky enough not to know, is twinned in motoring spirit with Swindon (home of the mini-roundabout). It majors in proud provision of characterless dual carriageways and big scary roundabouts. The kind to have traffic lights on them so that you can’t slide round to the third exit; instead you have to do it in staggered jumps to reach the right lane each time. Really rather scary.
I made it to a Halfords, like the Jews to the promised land, thinking, like my idol the little red hen, that I would do fix it all by myself. Fool. Halfords got ready to laugh. They paved the way with signs saying they could fit bulbs and things. At a charge.
I strolled busily to the fuse section and stared, like the dog at a Latin primer at the stuff on offer. All so confusing. A book on fixing a Cortina circa 1983? no probs. A plethora of air fresheners in a range of designs? Be my guest. A fuse for a vaguely modern car? No way, sucker.
So I went to find a man. There were none; and then there were 2, demonstrating baffling teamwork with a roll of tape where none seemed needed. I smiled as if at two Teletubbies, and started my explanation.
“Can’t help you, ‘fraid,” one smirked, “We’re work experience.” The ‘sorry’ came as an afterthought, delivered with a tone close to mirth. Pissed off customer? Job well done. The lad clutched his roll of tape importantly. My smile stiffened into something sickly and not entirely pleasant.
I found the desk.
Two lads were chatting by the till.
"Don’t let me interrupt you,” I said eventually, nice with a little ice. I launched back into my explanation.
“Oh we can’t help you,” one said.
“God forbid,” I said, “Silly me.” The boldness conferred upon a middle aged woman denied access to her Tom-Tom via a teeny tiny fuse and a bored jobsworth.
“I mean, we can. But we have to charge you.”
But of course.
So I strode from the shop in a WTF way, scuttled homewards, bowed to the inevitable, and called in on the dealership. DIY proving yet again to be a waste of bloody time.
The dealership has been taken over by a smarter car-breed since last time and accessing it off the, yup, dual carriageway called for lots of swearing, missed stabs at the slipway and dangerous u-turns. In I went to this vaulted glass palace with its marble floors and maple coffee tables, its playstations and spreads of magazines – Lexusland or MercCity or whatever it is – feeling scruffy and out of place. A sentiment possibly echoed by the Service Manager who bustled over swishily as if about to invite me to dance while at the same time doing his damnedest to steer me into a dark corner. I nearly curtsied.
“What seems to be the problem?” he purred.
I told him. I said that there was no ‘seemed’ about it, but that a fuse had blown and could I buy a new one, please.
He sashayed off to consult his screen, peering with due importance over half moon specs and tapping at the keyboard with a manicured mitt.
“Gavin?” he trilled. Gavin fetched Mike. They muttered.
Mike lent Shakespearean sorrow to the proceedings. He knew his place and maybe didn’t mingle much with such as the Service Manager. He bent mournfully over an oily rag which he fed from hand to hand and said that it would be an hour before they’d have a chance even to look at the car; only he didn’t call it a look, he called it Undertaking A Diagnostic Survey. Which would take at least an hour.
Dancing Service Manager let me hear all this and then said it again, since we all know that monkeys with rags don’t impart useful information to customers, even if they are plebs, only Service Managers do this.
“I don’t think it needs one of those,” I said, “it’s a fuse.”
“We’re not ruling a fuse out,” he said, glancing at Mike in an urgent, important, manly, way for corroboration, “But we’ll need to Undertake A ...”
“A Diagnostic Survey,” I finished.
“Yes,” he said.
“Which will take at least an hour?” I said.
“Yes,” they both said.
“So, we’re looking at how much?” I asked
“?”
“What’s it likely to cost?”
“Hard to say at this stage. It depends on the Diagnostic Survey, which is at least an hour and then … would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Forget it,” I said slightly tersely, springing into my WTF stride again and thrilling myself by managing the big glass doors without weeping or trapping my hand.
I vowed to get used to no Tom-Tom, no fiddling with mirrors, no clock, no CD, but it was hard going and the journey home was a long ten minutes.
I called in, on spec, at the local garage. It’s a bit of a mess, with no work experience, no entrance hall, no tea and coffee, no magazines. But, lo, a man in a shirt and tie bounded out helpfully from the portacabin hut.
What strange set up was this? No being avoided, ignored, patronised or passed down the line. Weird.
“Let’s take a look,” he said. See! A look. All I wanted was a look.
I played hand maiden to his He-Man and we fiddled with the glove compartment and located the fuse box hidden high above it, and he prised it out and stared it and then said, “Give me a minute.”
Then he ran back to me, like a chap in an advert and inserted the fuse and smiled and said, “Start her up then.”
So I did and all the lights and the mirrors and the clocks and the radio came beaming into life and I smiled the smile of the easily pleased and sighed a happy sigh.
“Thank you so much!” I gushed.
He looked a little surprised at my pleasure.
“It’s been a long afternoon,” I said. “Let me know what I owe you?”
“For a fuse?” he said, puzzled. “Nothing at all.”
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
Day in Life of the Remarkably Idle Milla
(this was done, as did we all, for a thing on purplecoo, and I have transported it just because I'm slightly OCD and like all my toys together. It was done last week or so, hence the reference to dear Masterchef, for the loss of which I am already in mourning:)
My day begins hours too early, at 7.46, with a thump at the clock radio.
Having been awake all night, it is during the next 7 minutes that I have the best dreams in the world before being cruelly snatched back into the world of things to do. I have always loathed mornings and getting up but, once up, I adopt a scornful stance towards any filthy lie-a-bed who might still be wallowing in their cot. I wonder whom I can phone and stir from their slumbers.
The next hour is one of high octane adrenaline. No wonder I hate getting up when first up is dealing with Lolly’s nocturnal turds (if necessary, says hopefully). Then bustle through to kitchen to enbreakfast children and hound: Lolly last in an attempt to establish a pecking order with her right at the bottom of it. Don’t all gasp, purplecooers, it’s what The Books say: dogs come last. By now she is outside trying to grasp the concept of lavatorying 'neath the big bad sky. Her besom face, perplexed at all things to do with rules, will be held at an angle and berate me through the glass of the door: Why am I outside. I hate rain, I hate wet grass, I don’t like getting my knickers wet, I won’t squat here, there’s a perfectly serviceable carpet inside. I will glare at her. She will rise like a bear and throw clattery claws at the glass.
In.
Now.
I toss my head and turn on the kettle. It is a little early for a true battle of wills, but I am the one with opposable thumbs who can grapple with the handle, while she is not.
Lunch preparation happens now, too, with endless little goodies piled into my offspring’s lunchboxes.
I make no apologies for being unbearably smug about these lunchboxes: they gleam with good intentions which have actually been carried through.
How rare is that.
Tiny pots of olives, raspberries, carrot, mango combine to approach their five a day without even trying and, God knows, I need to feel good about something I do. As often as not, too, the biscuit or cake is homemade although I may let the side down with a baby sausage roll rich in dodgy bits of pork knees.
Sandwiches are a bore since peanut butter is not allowed, up there with guns and knives on the prohibited list: one boy in another year “might” be allergic; one child in Reception has a kiwi allergy: therefore no children in the school are allowed kiwi fruit. I know, I know, yet again how very unsympathetic I sound: how much of a “bore” would I really feel if some child or other slipped into a coma because of a naughtily smuggled-in peanut butter sandwich made by me. But still sandwiches *are* a bore and seem to bring out the worst in us all.
I shovel in some rice cakes and oat cakes instead.
By now I am onto my second cup of black coffee of the day, technically, perhaps, my fourth, since each cup takes 2 strong teaspoonfuls.
As an impoverished student, I would only drink real, now I will only drink instant, but only Costa Rican and exact almost to the point of grain count. A bad cup of coffee is so disappointing. E calls my coffee slippery muck, I jeer just as unkindly at his foul brown liquid which is mere Gold Blend and not the nectar of the Gods which is mine. Needless to say we nurse our own jars fiercely.
I don’t bother to eat, unless E hasn't gone into work nastily early but is busily getting in my way making worthy porridge and then I tut, and make a big deal of working round him in a huffy manner and ungraciously allow him to make me a baby bear bowl-ful of the stuff. No sugar, however, can’t abide porridge with sugar. Yuk. He takes my wincing at his rounded spoonful of the same as indicative of my desire to ring a divorce solicitor.
He might be right.
He tuts back.
Happy families.
Round about now I regroup with an aaaaah moment, leaning back against the walnut cupboards, upper bottom cold against the granite and enjoy a full-on love-in of the most glorious kitchen in the world.
Truly it is a dream. It is big and stylish and fan-bloody-tastic. It inspires kitchen-envy in all luckless females who come to admire, and it is mine, mine, mine, mwah ha ha.
After 20 months of squalor and grime and ancient formica belonging to another, I am now truly spoiled. But at least I know it. 30’+ long, it is 2 old rooms knocked into one plus an extension. The old dining room end, which we used to call the caravan, takes a monstrous huge charity shop sofa – a raft of a thing; also tucked in are piano; large oriental rug; bookcase; 2 sets of drawers; and view. And the wall light is quite groovy.
The middle bit, divided from the caravan by a much-used (to my surprise) “breakfast bar” is actual dream kitchen from heaven. As I gaze lovingly at my empire, a jewel in a unfinished house still ceiling-high with boxes, my 2 boys are at chomp, chatting to me or annoying each other, or reading The Beano. Thumping big island, double-doored larder, bookshelves, L-shaped units. Enough cupboards to lose a dog in – and God knows I’d like to try sometimes.
The far end has an enormous oval table in smoked oak with 8 diddy chairs, quite terrifyingly modern, planted round it, and with one of my father’s most beautiful paintings on the yellowy wall.
Have I mentioned that I love our kitchen?
This admiration session possibly accounts for the next bad-tempered few minutes when I realise, AGAIN, how late we are for although we sort of thought we had masses of time, inevitably we don’t, the promised safety net of 15 minutes to go having disappeared in a flash. Mother sets up a screech. F9 roars that he’s “doin’ somethin’” and T11 stands shiny and a little put out that he is booted and coated and bagged and teethed but that no one else is. Lolly, who has been let in by a boy eyes the front door anxiously, again lamenting her rubbish paws which won’t let her fasten her own lead and establish herself outside and ready to go. She has 2 high points of the day: 3 minutes ago which was eating breakfast, and the next hour of her main walk. Sometimes I feel sorry for her. And then she’ll run off like a delinquent teenager, and I want to turn her into gloves.
So a raggletaggle quarrelsome quad we make barging out of the door, dog like a furry bullet first (despite best attempts to keep her greasy slipperiness at the rear, where she should be, as advised by The Books) a hint of her massively irritating and incapacitating inter-leg weaving walking up the road to come. I wear my sunglasses in all weathers to avoid catching the eye of all the good parents driving away while we still have a five minute walk ahead of us. I kiss my boys, giving thanks that they have never (yet) had a problem at public displays of affection: surely that is the deal with children? Your scars, their kisses.
Then I chat with the other mothers about nothing for 20 minutes but still we laugh, and then walk Lolly in the fields with another mother and her dog who is most sub-standard dog. For she won’t play with Lolly being obsessed instead with impressive ball chasing which also involves hogging 2 sticks as well as stuffing rancid tennis ball in mouth too. How greedy. She shames, too, by being horribly good at coming back when called, compared with my mad bag of insolent fur who ignores me being far too busy bustling up, all swaggery bum and flying fur, to any random dog going. These invariably yap and hiss back which drives her to seek refuge instead rummaging unpleasantly in hedges. A girly girl my Lolly, I call her hedge work “shopping”.
Other mother talks the entire time about her various sporting prowess or boasts about her dog, underlining the line which cannot be crossed in obedience terms. So I switch off and pray for a thunderbolt from heaven to catapult her and her mutt into the stream on the bottom field.
It is Lolly, though, on whom all the children from school fall, carolling “Lollllllleeeeeee!” in delight, so that, perhaps, is my reward. Other mother probably hates me.
Once home it’s time for a necessary cup of coffee and a check of the post and any phone messages. A good day is none of either. I hate post and messages, truly the worst thing, up there with laundry. Goodness, it might mean that I have to respond to something.
The next hour should be spent in routine dullness. You know the sort of thing, desultory tidying, resentful hoovering, Putting Things Away, plumping sofas. Whistle while you work stuff which sears my soul, but instead I find myself lured by the computer and Just Checking A Few Sites. I will have to lie to E about this later. I intersperse this self-indulgence with showing a polite interest in the washing machine and dabbing the brush at high-maintenance Lolly who, like every member of the family, inwardly cries out for staff.
The enormous elephant in the day of this life is that I possibly need a job. I used to work for The Biggest Advertising Agency, and then for The Only Radio. It seems a lifetime ago. Strange thing, jobs, though, and how little actual work you have to do while there. Truly just turning up and being in the building tended to be enough for most of us. But I don’t want to do that anymore. And I reckon I'm unemployable by now anyway.
At some stage into young children, I was press ganged by a virtual criminal into designing and creating his garden, and then his wife’s, and then into looking after them. It was terribly well paid, but I was never comfortable with the strange comings and goings, nor his attempts to shove his tongue in my mouth, although the smart wine he routinely gave me slipped down a treat and few gardeners, maybe, get given Laurent Perrier champagne when knee-deep in mud. I was naughty and just stopped going. Besides, my back hurt too much by then.
And I’ve done some half-hearted editing of the most spleen-crushingly boring reports for a woman who thought she couldn’t write. She could write well enough, but of a strangled, committee-speak sort that did your head. Eye-blinkingly painful for a wannabe-purist like me who squeals at a split infinitive and flinches at the word “situation.”
Recently I’ve had to be sort of project managing here (chokes at the notion of such self-importance) but, with the end in sight, I need to get real and get a job, but of the kind that doesn’t exis:. 10-2.30, well-paid and term-time only and able to take a day off at the drop of a hat to look after the children. Or if I need a little lie-down.
This is long and have only reached 11ses so will resort to phrases for the rest:
Pfaff around, time disappears, feel busy, achieve nothing.
Another day looks set to drift by without having filed my life in filing cabinets. Paperwork is the carpet.
Maybe I’ll garden, if it’s nice.
Collect children at 3.15. Maybe a friend back, maybe not. Maybe they go to the park and play, or to piano, or ju jitsu, or rugby or not. Chat, to whoever will have me.
Wince at badly-written letters home from school, hand poised, again on phone to ask headmaster if he wants help in sentence construction. Resist. Wisely.
Make supper. At least I cook. That’s something in my favour.
All eat together at about half past six. Work on the house. We all sit watching Masterchef, roaring “Cooking Doesn’t Get Tougher Than This” en masse at the TV. After which children are despatched quickly to bed and disappear upstairs in a crosspatch of teeth-brushing and blame.
If in, watch rubbish on TV. But virtuously knit or sew or read at the same time and look up occasionally, irritating E by asking “which one is that …?” or “Is he the one who …?”
Go to bed.
F9 will still be up. This will be the fault, it seems, of the deep-in-dreams T11.
Read.
Sleep.
Tomorrow is another day.
My day begins hours too early, at 7.46, with a thump at the clock radio.
Having been awake all night, it is during the next 7 minutes that I have the best dreams in the world before being cruelly snatched back into the world of things to do. I have always loathed mornings and getting up but, once up, I adopt a scornful stance towards any filthy lie-a-bed who might still be wallowing in their cot. I wonder whom I can phone and stir from their slumbers.
The next hour is one of high octane adrenaline. No wonder I hate getting up when first up is dealing with Lolly’s nocturnal turds (if necessary, says hopefully). Then bustle through to kitchen to enbreakfast children and hound: Lolly last in an attempt to establish a pecking order with her right at the bottom of it. Don’t all gasp, purplecooers, it’s what The Books say: dogs come last. By now she is outside trying to grasp the concept of lavatorying 'neath the big bad sky. Her besom face, perplexed at all things to do with rules, will be held at an angle and berate me through the glass of the door: Why am I outside. I hate rain, I hate wet grass, I don’t like getting my knickers wet, I won’t squat here, there’s a perfectly serviceable carpet inside. I will glare at her. She will rise like a bear and throw clattery claws at the glass.
In.
Now.
I toss my head and turn on the kettle. It is a little early for a true battle of wills, but I am the one with opposable thumbs who can grapple with the handle, while she is not.
Lunch preparation happens now, too, with endless little goodies piled into my offspring’s lunchboxes.
I make no apologies for being unbearably smug about these lunchboxes: they gleam with good intentions which have actually been carried through.
How rare is that.
Tiny pots of olives, raspberries, carrot, mango combine to approach their five a day without even trying and, God knows, I need to feel good about something I do. As often as not, too, the biscuit or cake is homemade although I may let the side down with a baby sausage roll rich in dodgy bits of pork knees.
Sandwiches are a bore since peanut butter is not allowed, up there with guns and knives on the prohibited list: one boy in another year “might” be allergic; one child in Reception has a kiwi allergy: therefore no children in the school are allowed kiwi fruit. I know, I know, yet again how very unsympathetic I sound: how much of a “bore” would I really feel if some child or other slipped into a coma because of a naughtily smuggled-in peanut butter sandwich made by me. But still sandwiches *are* a bore and seem to bring out the worst in us all.
I shovel in some rice cakes and oat cakes instead.
By now I am onto my second cup of black coffee of the day, technically, perhaps, my fourth, since each cup takes 2 strong teaspoonfuls.
As an impoverished student, I would only drink real, now I will only drink instant, but only Costa Rican and exact almost to the point of grain count. A bad cup of coffee is so disappointing. E calls my coffee slippery muck, I jeer just as unkindly at his foul brown liquid which is mere Gold Blend and not the nectar of the Gods which is mine. Needless to say we nurse our own jars fiercely.
I don’t bother to eat, unless E hasn't gone into work nastily early but is busily getting in my way making worthy porridge and then I tut, and make a big deal of working round him in a huffy manner and ungraciously allow him to make me a baby bear bowl-ful of the stuff. No sugar, however, can’t abide porridge with sugar. Yuk. He takes my wincing at his rounded spoonful of the same as indicative of my desire to ring a divorce solicitor.
He might be right.
He tuts back.
Happy families.
Round about now I regroup with an aaaaah moment, leaning back against the walnut cupboards, upper bottom cold against the granite and enjoy a full-on love-in of the most glorious kitchen in the world.
Truly it is a dream. It is big and stylish and fan-bloody-tastic. It inspires kitchen-envy in all luckless females who come to admire, and it is mine, mine, mine, mwah ha ha.
After 20 months of squalor and grime and ancient formica belonging to another, I am now truly spoiled. But at least I know it. 30’+ long, it is 2 old rooms knocked into one plus an extension. The old dining room end, which we used to call the caravan, takes a monstrous huge charity shop sofa – a raft of a thing; also tucked in are piano; large oriental rug; bookcase; 2 sets of drawers; and view. And the wall light is quite groovy.
The middle bit, divided from the caravan by a much-used (to my surprise) “breakfast bar” is actual dream kitchen from heaven. As I gaze lovingly at my empire, a jewel in a unfinished house still ceiling-high with boxes, my 2 boys are at chomp, chatting to me or annoying each other, or reading The Beano. Thumping big island, double-doored larder, bookshelves, L-shaped units. Enough cupboards to lose a dog in – and God knows I’d like to try sometimes.
The far end has an enormous oval table in smoked oak with 8 diddy chairs, quite terrifyingly modern, planted round it, and with one of my father’s most beautiful paintings on the yellowy wall.
Have I mentioned that I love our kitchen?
This admiration session possibly accounts for the next bad-tempered few minutes when I realise, AGAIN, how late we are for although we sort of thought we had masses of time, inevitably we don’t, the promised safety net of 15 minutes to go having disappeared in a flash. Mother sets up a screech. F9 roars that he’s “doin’ somethin’” and T11 stands shiny and a little put out that he is booted and coated and bagged and teethed but that no one else is. Lolly, who has been let in by a boy eyes the front door anxiously, again lamenting her rubbish paws which won’t let her fasten her own lead and establish herself outside and ready to go. She has 2 high points of the day: 3 minutes ago which was eating breakfast, and the next hour of her main walk. Sometimes I feel sorry for her. And then she’ll run off like a delinquent teenager, and I want to turn her into gloves.
So a raggletaggle quarrelsome quad we make barging out of the door, dog like a furry bullet first (despite best attempts to keep her greasy slipperiness at the rear, where she should be, as advised by The Books) a hint of her massively irritating and incapacitating inter-leg weaving walking up the road to come. I wear my sunglasses in all weathers to avoid catching the eye of all the good parents driving away while we still have a five minute walk ahead of us. I kiss my boys, giving thanks that they have never (yet) had a problem at public displays of affection: surely that is the deal with children? Your scars, their kisses.
Then I chat with the other mothers about nothing for 20 minutes but still we laugh, and then walk Lolly in the fields with another mother and her dog who is most sub-standard dog. For she won’t play with Lolly being obsessed instead with impressive ball chasing which also involves hogging 2 sticks as well as stuffing rancid tennis ball in mouth too. How greedy. She shames, too, by being horribly good at coming back when called, compared with my mad bag of insolent fur who ignores me being far too busy bustling up, all swaggery bum and flying fur, to any random dog going. These invariably yap and hiss back which drives her to seek refuge instead rummaging unpleasantly in hedges. A girly girl my Lolly, I call her hedge work “shopping”.
Other mother talks the entire time about her various sporting prowess or boasts about her dog, underlining the line which cannot be crossed in obedience terms. So I switch off and pray for a thunderbolt from heaven to catapult her and her mutt into the stream on the bottom field.
It is Lolly, though, on whom all the children from school fall, carolling “Lollllllleeeeeee!” in delight, so that, perhaps, is my reward. Other mother probably hates me.
Once home it’s time for a necessary cup of coffee and a check of the post and any phone messages. A good day is none of either. I hate post and messages, truly the worst thing, up there with laundry. Goodness, it might mean that I have to respond to something.
The next hour should be spent in routine dullness. You know the sort of thing, desultory tidying, resentful hoovering, Putting Things Away, plumping sofas. Whistle while you work stuff which sears my soul, but instead I find myself lured by the computer and Just Checking A Few Sites. I will have to lie to E about this later. I intersperse this self-indulgence with showing a polite interest in the washing machine and dabbing the brush at high-maintenance Lolly who, like every member of the family, inwardly cries out for staff.
The enormous elephant in the day of this life is that I possibly need a job. I used to work for The Biggest Advertising Agency, and then for The Only Radio. It seems a lifetime ago. Strange thing, jobs, though, and how little actual work you have to do while there. Truly just turning up and being in the building tended to be enough for most of us. But I don’t want to do that anymore. And I reckon I'm unemployable by now anyway.
At some stage into young children, I was press ganged by a virtual criminal into designing and creating his garden, and then his wife’s, and then into looking after them. It was terribly well paid, but I was never comfortable with the strange comings and goings, nor his attempts to shove his tongue in my mouth, although the smart wine he routinely gave me slipped down a treat and few gardeners, maybe, get given Laurent Perrier champagne when knee-deep in mud. I was naughty and just stopped going. Besides, my back hurt too much by then.
And I’ve done some half-hearted editing of the most spleen-crushingly boring reports for a woman who thought she couldn’t write. She could write well enough, but of a strangled, committee-speak sort that did your head. Eye-blinkingly painful for a wannabe-purist like me who squeals at a split infinitive and flinches at the word “situation.”
Recently I’ve had to be sort of project managing here (chokes at the notion of such self-importance) but, with the end in sight, I need to get real and get a job, but of the kind that doesn’t exis:. 10-2.30, well-paid and term-time only and able to take a day off at the drop of a hat to look after the children. Or if I need a little lie-down.
This is long and have only reached 11ses so will resort to phrases for the rest:
Pfaff around, time disappears, feel busy, achieve nothing.
Another day looks set to drift by without having filed my life in filing cabinets. Paperwork is the carpet.
Maybe I’ll garden, if it’s nice.
Collect children at 3.15. Maybe a friend back, maybe not. Maybe they go to the park and play, or to piano, or ju jitsu, or rugby or not. Chat, to whoever will have me.
Wince at badly-written letters home from school, hand poised, again on phone to ask headmaster if he wants help in sentence construction. Resist. Wisely.
Make supper. At least I cook. That’s something in my favour.
All eat together at about half past six. Work on the house. We all sit watching Masterchef, roaring “Cooking Doesn’t Get Tougher Than This” en masse at the TV. After which children are despatched quickly to bed and disappear upstairs in a crosspatch of teeth-brushing and blame.
If in, watch rubbish on TV. But virtuously knit or sew or read at the same time and look up occasionally, irritating E by asking “which one is that …?” or “Is he the one who …?”
Go to bed.
F9 will still be up. This will be the fault, it seems, of the deep-in-dreams T11.
Read.
Sleep.
Tomorrow is another day.
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