Diary of a Mummy Misfit #1 (31 page)

Hurried home before I became contaminated and mixed up another brew for tonight.

‘Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble …’ and all that!

Saturday 1
^st
November

Look more like a witch this morning than I did last night.  Jeez, how does every night with F&J do that to me?  Pale, blotchy skin, manic hair and skunk-breath.  Ned was no better and we just about managed to grunt at one another to communicate that we’d take Max swimming for the morning.

We most certainly went way past the witching hour last night - we wore the kids and the dogs out with scary games and manic chases.  We apple bobbed, pinned the nose on the witch and played wink-murder.  By the time the children sat down to ‘Dead Men’s Fingers’, ‘Puss Balls’ and ‘Manky Maggots’ (sausages, peas and savoury rice) - they were just about walking corpses themselves.  The dogs tucked into ‘Mangled Witches Cat’ (Chum) and we settled three kids and four dogs down on duvets to watch ‘Meg and Mog’ - the only DVD we could think of with a vague Halloween theme without being scary viewing.

We adults then sat down to a fondue and told the scariest stories we could think of.  Fenella’s being the time she hit the top of her credit card limit.

Josh then quipped, “That’s not half as frightening as when I had to pay it off!”

Amused ourselves by pretending that each piece of meat we cooked was a juicy morsel of flesh from any Manor Housers we despised.

As usual, it spiralled into the ridiculously immature with fondue forks in chunks of beef becoming ‘steaks’ through hearts and pieces of chicken being dunked into the scalding hot fat ‘murder most fowl’.  Every now and again one of us would burst into a primeval cry of “Take that you bastards!” or an ogre-ish “Mmmm tasty piece of Gnome buttock!”

Who says Halloween is just for kids?

Sunday 2
^nd
November  

Went to Mum’s for a birthday lunch.

Met Elle’s partner, Rob.  Both Ned and I took to him immediately as he has just the right touch with Mum - respectful but with a hint of tongue-in-cheek. Think Ned is grateful to have some male company in the family - if only for moral support when it comes to declining second helpings of Mum’s culinary offerings.

Elle was looking very well.  Pregnancy seems to have softened her edges, which, in contrast, makes Harriet look even more hard-nosed.  She spent most of the day barking orders down her iPhone or furiously tapping emails on the laptop - good company for Gestapo Dad.

Of course if I’d dared to go to Mum’s and act like that I’d never hear the end of it but all we heard from her was, “My Harriet, such a clever girl.  Doesn’t she work hard, Rob?”

Oh yes and being a full time mum and prep school misfit means I sit around on my lardy arse all day watching daytime television, doesn’t it?

To top it all my M&S voucher had caused her huge problems because there was “simply nothing suitable in store.”   

The House of Fraser Voucher from Harriet was “just perfect” and “spent within a flash.”  The gardening centre gift certificate from Elle, “so useful and thoughtful.”

Grrr - I give up.  Perhaps Ned’s right and I was a waif who my mother adopted to make her look like a charitable and loving woman.

Having an early night as Mum’s Yorkshire pudding is still sitting like a stone in my stomach and I can’t be arsed to listen to Ned groaning about his wind and bowel discomfort.

Monday 3
^rd
November

Ned’s driving me mad.  Morning, noon and night we have to listen to him practising his Father Christmas lines.

“My you’ve grown since I last saw you.”

“Mummy tells me you been a very good boy this year.”

“A little birdie tells me you might like a new bike.”

Had to explain to Max that some of the daddies would be pretending to be Father Christmas and that he wasn’t to tell the other children. We also said we’d take him to see the ‘real’ one at his special grotto, closer to Christmas.  Hope we were convincing but suspect kids agree to the concept just to humour their parents and guarantee the presents they want.

Fed up with having to tell Ned if his tone is friendly enough or his “ho-ho-ho” too loud. He says it will all come together once he has the costume and he’d quite like to have a trial run at home.

“You know the beard and belly will make all the difference to the characterisation and I don’t want to leave it till the day, Lib. Could traumatise the kids for life.”

Agreed to bring one of the costumes home from the school cupboard, just to shut him up. Have a feeling it might only make matters worse though.  “Is my beard full enough?”  “Does my belly need another cushion?”  “Does my bum look big enough in this?”

Guess I should be grateful he’s so enthusiastic but, if I hear another ho-bloody-ho, I swear I’ll strangle him with the elasticated beard.

Tackling the fair since June seems to have left me slightly lacking in the Christmas spirit just when I need it most but, frankly, if I never see another roll of wrapping paper or bauble again I’m likely to shove it up Santa’s chimney.

Off to tackle job #32 on my list of duties for today.

Tuesday 4
^th
November

Email from Shaaaron:

‘Am assuming all is running smoothly with preparations and wanted to pass on the following -

A few mothers have mentioned that the queuing time to see Father Christmas last year was ridiculous.  Please organise a pre-booking system, whereby each child can make an appointment in the week leading up to the fair - 5 minute slots only, and make sure that all FC’s adhere to this time frame.  Suggest you send newsletter around and then sit outside school gates at pick-up to make bookings.  £5 per child, siblings not allowed joint visits.

Looking forward to your next update.’

Had a coffee and a fag and waited for the phone to ring.  I had no doubt that Fenella would be on the warpath soon - probably just having her own nicotine and caffeine fix before deciding on which expletives to bellow down the phone.

Wednesday 5
^th
November

Guy Fawkes Night

Without making any reference to rubber hoses or noses, we politely and calmly told Shaaaron what we thought of their FC booking system.  We laid the sentimental clap-trap on pretty thick with, “How can you deny the children the mystery of not knowing when they’ll get to see Father Christmas?” and Fenella’s classic, “A child mustn’t feel that Father Christmas can only spare five minutes of his time.  Of course, we’ll try to stick to the time frame but …
oh
… the little ones must never know!”  It was a theatrical triumph.  Nobody would have guessed it was just because we didn’t want another bloody job to do - especially not one that involved a whole heap of organisation
and
sitting out in the cold every afternoon for a week.

Match point to us.

Provided them with a full running rota for the day - who knows if people will actually be
where
they should be,
when
they should be but we’ve done our best.  Fenella giggled to me that maybe we hadn’t emailed it to them in an attractive enough format and perhaps we should have prepared a PowerPoint presentation.

Spent the evening addressing raffle ticket envelopes at the kitchen table with Fenella.  Ned and Josh did a small firework display in the garden so that the kids could watch it safely through our leaky conservatory.  Dog and dogs slept in the front bedroom with a lavender scented candle and some juicy marrow bones soaked in Rescue Remedy - Fenella’s idea to distract them from the stress of the fireworks.  We even put the TV on for them but I think they took one look at the bones and thought they’d gone to doggy heaven - they could even be counting the days until next fireworks night.

And we’re counting the days to the fair - 9 to go!  We’re on the home straight and soon our lives will become our own again.

Thursday 6
^th
November

Have only just realised it’s Mia’s party extravaganza tomorrow.  Black tie, my bum.  If it wasn’t that Max was so keen on her, I’d make some kind of excuse.

Rifled through his cupboards and decided he can wear the waistcoat he wore to my birthday party with one of Ned’s bow-ties.  Had a brief discussion with him over breakfast about his mask and he told me that Mia was wearing sequins, pearls and feathers but he’d be quite happy with just feathers.

Most of my morning was taken up with aborted attempts at mask making and phone calls to outside stallholders confirming their booking for Saturday week.  Praise the Lord, all OK and ready to relieve the Manor House mummies of their husbands’ hard earned cash.

Ended up with a fairly credible mask that looked vaguely like a gay Zorro - not sure that Ned will approve but Max was delighted.

Can only please
some
of the people
some
of the time.

Friday 7
^th
November  AM

Gestapo was faffing around this morning, telling everyone how fantastic the party was going to be and how much work had been involved.  “I’m simply exhausted but it will be
so
worth it!”

“Vot a stinky liar,” Olga sidled up to me.  “Lazy bitch has left it all up to her nanny and zen
I
hev had to do loads of crap for it because Lydia-Boss-Lady tell me I hev too much spare time. Zey do nothing for zemselves - one day I expect one of zem to ask me to vipe zair bottie!”