Diary of a Mummy Misfit #1 (10 page)

Good grief.  The child has clearly lost his marbles.  I don’t think 20 kids would be entertained for very long by the kind of half arsed attempt Ned and I usually make at puppetry.

I played for time and said I’d discuss it with Daddy - hoping I knew what his response would be.

Thursday 12
^th
June

Went to bed in a huff last night.  Can’t believe that Ned thought the puppet show was a good idea.  Bet he’s only agreed to it because he’s terrified Max will decide he wants an expensive entertainer after all and, at least this way, it’s a cheap done deal.

He even went out into the shed looking for bits of old wood and paint to make the theatre!

Finally gave up on him when he sat at the computer and started working on our ‘scripts’ - really thinking he’s taking this a bit too far.  Doesn’t he realise how much I have on my plate?

Fenella thinks it’s hilarious and ‘terribly sweet’.

“Oh, I do hope we’re invited.  Can’t wait to see what you come up with.  What fun!  Can we book you for Charlotte’s?”

Cut her short, as I wanted her to side with
me
not Ned.  And I
don’t
want to take advance bookings for a poxy puppet show I have no desire to be part off.

Going to sulk.

Friday 13
^th
June  AM

OK Friday the 13
^th
… what can you throw at me today?  Aside from some puppy crap on the stairs and stubbing my toe on the monstrosity of a part-built puppet theatre that now appears to live in our hall?

Managed to get to and from nursery safely, only to find that the postman was waiting on the doorstep with a parcel.

Knew I hadn’t ordered anything so rushed inside to open it.

Two bloody dog puppets, ordered from some wanky website by Ned on Wednesday night when he was in full puppeteer mode. 

Checked email to find he’d also sent my first draft of our script for ‘Dog Saves the World’.  I play the part of Delilah - Dog’s assistant.  There are about three acts and, after a quick, reluctant scanning, lots of slapstick and appropriately silly jokes.  Privately admitted it was really rather good but bugger me if I’ll let on to Ned.

Next email was another from Ned asking me to sort out ‘the attached list of props’.

Have to hand it to him for trying but I refuse to get roped into this any more than necessary.  I
will not
spend my morning running around on assistant stage manager’s duties.  I have other more important things to do.

Am now off to paint my nails a suitably whorish colour for tomorrow night and then pluck my wayward eyebrows - have noticed they’re in a permanent frown.

PM

Ned came home with some yummy wine from a client.  He also suggested a take-away - sure sign of a guilty conscience.

Max went to bed early, very excited about the impending puppet show.  Have to admit a five year old’s enthusiasm does start to rub off and I could feel the first stirrings of excitement about the idea.   After all, it
is
original.  No other parents have come up with anything similar and then executed it - successfully or otherwise.

Damn Max and his cuteness and damn Ned’s client’s wine - it’s clearly fuddling my brain.

Saturday 14
^th
June  AM

Murder mystery tonight.

We took Max swimming this morning and, for once, I didn’t need to care what my hair looked like at the end of it because I knew that this afternoon I’d be transformed. (I can always dream).

Don’t think I looked quite as meaty in my swimming costume - maybe the temporary abstinence has worked.  I’ll find out tonight anyway, as I haven’t had a chance to test out the basque again all week. Here’s hoping.

Max, as usual after a swim, was ravenous so we stopped off for a pizza on the way home.  Even had one myself - surely the pounds don’t pile on
that
quickly and I’ll still be semi-svelte for tonight?

Left Max & Ned at home up to boy’s things - raiding the kitchen cupboards for smelly foodstuffs to make a potion that would turn all men into super-heroes.  With my growing ‘TO DO’ lists, I only hope they come up with one for women too.

PM

Back from hairdressers and all I can say is, “Thank God I took the car!”  Think I’ve now got used to the added tones of copper and auburn but praise the Lord that the style itself is only temporary and no one I knew saw me on the way home.

“Well, you did ask for Edwardian whore,” Ned laughed as he examined my ‘rolled out of bed/half up-half down look’, “And I think you’ll find that’s exactly what you’ve got.”  He then touched one of the escapee (intentional of course) curls and commented, “Great colour and, after all, the ‘whore-do’ is only temporary!”

“I think Mummy looks very pretty,” the ever-faithful Max piped up. “I like it when her hair is all shiny bright.”

Think that was meant as a good thing.

Fed Max and puppies then had a fortifying glass of wine before going upstairs to prepare for the fun ahead.

The bustle I’d managed to cobble together from an old lace skirt and cushion was very effective and made me realise how J. Lo must feel.  Quite comfy to sit on too!

Called Ned for an extra pair of hands to get trussed up into the basque.  Don’t think it’s
quite
as tight as it was last week as I can actually breathe in it now.  Ned said I looked gorgeous, like a ripe Nell Gwyn.

Mum arrived to babysit and said I looked more like Mrs Lovett from ‘Sweeney Todd’.

She’d better watch it or I might just take up pie-making …

Sunday 15
^th
June

Head is throbbing as I write - really must try to show some self-restraint occasionally but it’s so hard when you’re caught up in the moment.  I had such fun last night, the last thing I considered was waking up with a brain like a shrivelled prune and a mouth that appears to have been crapped in.

Definitely no alcohol for me next week.

Arrived at F&J’s last night to find that she’d really gone to town for the event. Their dining room had been transformed with velvet drapes and silk scarves.  There was no electric light but every possible surface was glittering with variously shaped and sized scented candles.

Fenella looked wonderfully authentic - right down to the smudged red lippy and over-rouged cheeks.  I needn’t have worried about my hooters being too much on display because her dumplings were well and truly boiling over and it didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.  Actually went to the loo and adjusted mine - couldn’t possibly be ‘out-boobed’.

Our men looked suitably rakish mixed with a little seediness - perfect combo in a man, I always think.

But of course we all looked like rank amateurs upon the arrival of Madame Sin & Rock Hard!  Nic was every drag queen’s dream - God only knows where he got the costume but it fitted him (and his ‘falsies’) like a second skin and its many thousands of sequins caught the light with every movement.  His wig was in the Diana Dors vein as was his slightly coarse humour.  Think Fenella and I both need to concede that we were out-boobed by a gay.

Rick was the most masculine I’ve ever seen him and I found it a little disconcerting.  He doesn’t usually do butch but he appeared to be finding it remarkably easy - clearly the actor in him.   (Oooh, just thought of a double entendre attached to that but I don’t even want to
go there!
)

Sat down to eat at about 9, by which time we were all a little worse for wear after too many glasses of Josh’s ‘Authentic Absinthe’.

Don’t think any of us realised what a long night we’d be in for.  After we’d read each scene from the provided scripts, we listened to a summing up CD and then questioned one another.  Josh was determined to leave no stone unturned and insisted from very early on that he’d already twigged whodunit.  At the end of the evening he admitted that he’d never had a clue and was just trying to appear sharp and not quite as pissed as he was.

I didn’t know who to accuse and still don’t have any idea why Madame Sinful would have strangled one her working girls with her own silk stocking, despite now being in full possession of the facts.  Probably helps to keep a clear head when doing these things - bet Columbo didn’t drink on the job.

By about midnight it had all became hilariously raucous with us all throwing the most ridiculous accusations at one another.  At one point Fenella said that Ned was definitely guilty because he was wearing a scarlet waistcoat and hadn’t finished all of his pudding.  At which point Ned replied that he didn’t intend to finish it because he knew she’d put poison at the bottom of the dish!

Josh shuddered a little when Madame Sinful said that ‘she’ hadn’t forgotten that ‘she’ owed him a particular sexual favour and was that why he’d bumped off one of ‘her’ girls?  Think Josh may have the same gay biases as Ned.  Question Fenella at later date.

Turned out that none of us were super sleuths because the guilty Madame Sinful got off without a single accusation.  Nic drunkenly put this down to his fantastic acting ability and treated us all to a slurred version of his (already prepared) Oscar acceptance speech.  Of course this was hugely embroidered and ended, for some reason, with him thanking the milkman, the milkman’s tortoise and the Pakistani man who runs his corner shop.

We all ended with a toast to Sajid and his humble convenience store.