Diary of a Mummy Misfit #1 (29 page)

“Probably shagging him in the potting shed, like a modern day Lady Chatterley,” Fenella laughed as she slurped on her coffee.

Shaaaron finally arrived at 10 to 10 and we got down to business.

“Ladies, we have two issues to discuss today, aside from the fact that we feel you’re doing an excellent job.”

Gee, thanks
.

“We’ve had a suggestion from a mother that it would be a super idea if we could sell salt dough figures of the children in Manor House uniform - like these.”  With that, she produced two cute figures of a boy and a girl dressed in school kit.  “Now the company that makes these is terribly expensive and we wouldn’t make much profit.  So we’d like you to organise a small team of our artier mothers to put together say … 250?  OK. The next point we need to address is some type of uniform for the parents helping on the stalls.  Last year nobody knew who to give their money to.  Sure you’ll be able to come up with something fab.  Hmmm?”  Much shuffling of papers and brushing down of invisible fluff from Armani jeans, indicated that the meeting had concluded.

Fenella cleared her throat and said very slowly, “So … new ideas and brainstorms filter through from …
wherever
and we’re just expected to accept them without question and get on with it?  Is that what I’m hearing?”

God she’s brave - I just sat there brushing off blatantly visible clumps of Dog and Dot hair from my M&S jeans, quivering like a girl.

Shaaaron stood, gathered her things and said calmly, “Yes Fenella, that’s exactly what I’m saying.  As Christmas Fair coordinators, you’ll simply be doing your job.  See you at the meeting next Tuesday to discuss your progress.”

Just hope she didn’t hear what Fenella told her to do as she left - but if she
had
heard her, she would have found that it was physically impossible and probably illegal.

PM

Pissed.  Pissed off and covered in salt dough from initial modelling experiments.

Figures look more like mutant aliens than school kids - don’t have natural ability for the craft.

Fenella called.  Her models look more like circus freaks and she’s just about to open a second bottle of wine.

WARNING:  Christmas fairs can seriously damage your health and can cause premature ageing.

Thursday 2
^nd
October

Spent drop-off time accosting mothers for volunteers to make ‘sodding-salt-dopey-dough-models’.  Heard many girlie giggles, haughty harrumphing and elongated excuses.  Also pitiful procrastinations, rude refusals and irritated indignation - “How could you insinuate I have nothing better to do with my time?” - implied by the tone but, “Fantastic idea. Will definitely buy loads.  Just too busy to get involved,” was what was actually said.

In other words, “Start making them, Sad-Sack, and don’t insult me by asking me to perform manual tasks ever again.”

They’ll chuck money at all manner of things, to make it look like they’re ‘doing their bit’ for the school, but won’t get actively involved with any of the graft because it’s just
too common.

Went to Starbucks and had mini breakdown over a frappé latte. The caffeine brought a sudden flash of clarity.  Why on earth were we bowing to the committee’s every whim and merrily going off like a couple of arse lickers?  ‘Yes Shaaaron.  No Shaaaron.  Three Gucci bags full Shaaaron’.  IT HAD TO STOP.  They were bloody lucky to have us organising their fair in the first place so they had no right to keep making ridiculous demands on us and the kowtowing had to end.  From now on, it was
our
way or
no
way.

Shuddered a little when I heard my mobile, just in case it was Shaaaron or Poo and I had to actually put my new-found confidence into practice.

It was Fenella.

Didn’t get a chance to get a word in edgeways as she babbled on without drawing breath.

“Lib.  Just at Costa’s having coffee and fag, in the pissing cold I might add, and suddenly saw the light.  We’re being treated like shit.  We WILL NOT be told what to do ANY MORE.   We are now revolting.  We’ll start putting our Jimmy Choo’s down.  Are you with me on this?”

Aah, great minds think alike.  Yes, I am pretty revolting and although I don’t have a pair of Jimmy Choo’s to put down, I can make a bloody good go of it in my TK Maxx wedges.

Solidarity Sister!

Friday 3
^rd
October

Think we felt a mixture of good and bad after our epiphany.

Happy that we’d brought the lunacy to a close (at least in
our
minds) and feeling a bit daft for acting like tits-in-a-trance for so long.  What would we have let them throw at us next?  ‘Fair must be opened by a member of the Royal family’?  ‘Admittance only on presentation of La Perla underwear by the ladies and Amex Black for the gents’?  ‘Please organise forthwith’.

Sat and had a coffee and fag (déjà vu) to celebrate.

Took a much needed fair-break and spent the morning preparing food for our guests tonight - F&J, Jenny and Colin.

Suddenly realised I still hadn’t opened Max’s invite to Mia’s party.  Discovered it was ‘a black tie/masked ball kiddie-cocktail-do’ at the local golf course!  God, give me strength - the only mask Max is interested in wearing is Spiderman and his idea of a cocktail is apple juice with fizzy water and an ice cube.

Then, horror of horrors, the postman arrived with a pretty scary looking credit card statement and an invite to a Tiny Terrors reunion at NM’s.  The invite read, ‘Perry is so desperate to catch up with all his old chums and we’d love to hear how everyone’s settling in at big school.  Hope to see you all next Thursday after school’.

Had another ciggie.

Decided to throw myself into an MG cookbook and let it all wash over me as I grappled with her ‘Darling Dumplings’ and ‘Succulent Breasts’ - rejected ‘Sausage in Cider’ but I doubt if
she
ever does.

Off to collect Max and then transform myself into silken haired beauty who’ll feed and entertain my guests with gay abandon in my delightfully bijou home.

Oops, don’t think nicotine and MG combine well.

Saturday 4
^th
October

Great night last night - Jenny and Colin really hit it off with F&J and the conversation flowed, along with the wine.

Fenella was begging for more school horror stories and they didn’t disappoint.  I find it hard to believe they’ve managed to stay at the school for so long, after the way some of the parents treat them.

Colin regularly receives calls on his mobile from parents needing ‘favours’  - one at eight o’clock at night because a mother wanted him to open up the school to get her daughter’s violin.  “When I told her it wasn’t convenient, she said she’d be taking it up with the heads.  Thankfully, they’re very supportive so nothing came of it - but the front of the trollop!  I’m not some kind of lackey.”

He’d also had a father ring in the early hours because he’d discovered a leaky tap and thought Colin would nip round and fix it for nothing.  “I kid you not!  Some of them seriously think that because I’m employed by the school, their fees pay my wage so, effectively, I’m employed by
them
to be at their beck and call 24/7.”

Jenny laughed, “You have to be pretty hardnosed dealing with them.  There are some monsters!  One mum asked me at a drinks party if we had any children and I told her we have a grown up daughter who’s a hairdresser.  Hmmph, you’d have thought I’d said ‘hooker’ - the look on her face was a picture and she quite blatantly turned her back on me and started talking to someone else.  Obviously far too lowly a profession.  How the bloody hell would these women get their requisite blonde highlights without hairdressers?”

Colin was beginning to delight in our stunned silence and was really playing to his audience.  “And you can’t begin to imagine the amount of affairs going on.  I’m constantly catching parents inflagrante in empty classrooms.  Almost put my foot in it once because I was introduced to a couple at a ‘school do’ and just started to say, ‘But I thought you were married to …?  It was only when Jen kicked me hard in the shin that I realised my mistake.”

“And then of course there’s the maths teacher, Mr Rooney.  He gives any lonely mum a good servicing.  All those poor frustrated women whose husbands go off on business only need to give him a call and he’s round like a shot!”

Fenella choked on her wine, “Gosh, he is rather dishy though isn’t he?  When are you next away Josh?  Now he could most definitely be my ‘man in reserve’.”

OK, that’s that question answered then.  My Delhi Delight is her Rampant Rooney.

The evening carried on in much the same vein, with us gleaning more and more juicy snippets.  Fenella rounded it off with a rendition of ‘Big Spender’ with Colin, Ned and Josh on drums, me on spoons (again! Must take up another party instrument) and Jenny performing a fake strip tease under the guise of someone called ‘Auntie Ethel’ - very disturbing!

Fifteen wine bottles in the recycling, two overflowing ashtrays and no leftover ‘MG’ tidbits -
must
have been a good night.

Sunday 5
^th
October

Went to Todd’s birthday lunch and met Fenella and Josh’s families.  Josh’s are all fairly sane and very friendly.  Fenella’s, totally loopy but equally friendly.

Fenella’s mother, Olivia, insisted we play good old-fashioned children’s games.  Not the usual like ‘Pass the Parcel’ but ‘Sardines’ and other more energetic activities.  Found myself in a wardrobe with Fenella’s brother and Josh’s sister and then, later, being manhandled by Fenella’s dad during a riotous round of ‘Squeak, Piggy, Squeak’.  The kids loved passing a balloon between their legs but not quite as much as Olivia enjoyed passing it to Ned.  “Oh, yes.  Forgot to tell you Lib.  Mummy and Daddy are the most notorious flirts.”  Fenella filled me in as she was cutting the cake.  “They don’t mean anything by it because they’re really desperately in love.  They just can’t help themselves.  Once Daddy found Mummy trying to get the vicar pissed because she’d decided she needed a challenge.  Terribly funny!”