The Shoe Princess's Guide to the Galaxy (20 page)

Exclusions

The HPA is forbidden to:

Bring more than one computer for personal use into the work premises, or perform any physics experiments in said premises (especially kitchen and bathroom); start up discussions with the HP on topics related to the meaning of life and the existence of anti-matter; count or criticise the number of shoes he may come across in the workplace; give Millie chocolates, Twiglets or any other sweets, unless expressly approved by the HP.

I agree and accept the terms and conditions set out in this contract,

Home Parent Assistant                                Home parent

(Signature and date)                                (Signature and date)

Brilliant! A happy summer shall be had by all.

www.ShoePrincess.com
 
Manolo Blahnik Moments of Madness
 
I get sent so many Manolo stories, here’s my Top 10 (in no particular order):
 
1. Full marks for initiative to junior SP of Hong Kong, aged 9 years, who sawed off the 9cm heels on her mother’s Manolos so that she could wear them.
2. Why not? SPs at Manolo Blahnik shopping ‘events’ in the US routinely buy two sets of the same pair of shoes – one to wear and the other (autographed) to display on their mantelpiece.
3. A popular London daytime TV personality reportedly renewed her contract with the network at the 11th hour, thanks to the inclusion of a ‘shoe clause’ – to feed her Manolo habit.
4. Go, Sister! A Spanish nun was sentenced to community service after embezzling school-library funds and spending them on 30 pairs of Manolos.
5. SP of Paris only ever wears skyscraper Manolos and drinks champagne during long-haul flights. Vowing that it prevents jetlag and always makes the destination city look more interesting.
6. Manolo rules the waves! SP of Shanghai was spied confidently strutting along a narrow gangway to a river-boat in a pair of towering alligatorskin party shoes.
7. Respect to SP of Toronto, who gave birth in 10cm Manolos – in stirrups.
8. Feng Shoey! SP of Los Angeles sued her (now ex-) boyfriend for emotional distress and material damages when he mistook her shoe-cupboard door for her bathroom door after a big night out – caking her many pairs of Manolos in vomit. (Surely death row would have been more appropriate!)
9. SP of St Petersburg highly recommends Manolos to inject spice into love-making – ever since her boyfriend started wearing them.
10. It must be love! Cape Town model and SP put 200 pairs of Manolos up for sale on eBay after her boyfriend refused to move in with her unless she halved her shoe collection.

18. Buckle Up

Saturday evening mega-pack for luxury team-building extravaganza: red patent-leather loafers – for car journey and motorway pit stops (must be able to withstand possible baby vomit and changing Millie on floor of grotty loo). Check. Sparkly slides and woven-mesh carry-all – perfect for antique fossicking in charming Oxfordshire village, post-baby-drop-off at Mum and Dad’s. Check. Hot pink-and-white gingham lace-ups, Jackie-O sunglasses and wide-brimmed hat – just in case we venture into a field. Check. Zebra-print pony-hair peep-toe wedges – to jazz up afternoon tea. Check. Satin jewel-trimmed slippers – for languishing post-love-making (with gin and tonic and girlie trash novel in hand) while Tim slumbers. Check. Cherry-and-lilac paisley-patterned wellie boots – for pre-dinner clay-pigeon shooting (that’s what they do at manor houses, isn’t it?). Check. Gold-chain-linked T-bar platform stilettos – for welcome dinner. Mmm, maybe a tad too ‘out there’ for Tim’s geeky IT crowd? Will take classic black three-inch court shoes as a fall-back. Check. Check. Now to pack my clothes and make-up, and we’re done.

6.30 a.m. Sunday morning: I’m fully dressed and sitting at the kitchen table waiting for Tim and Millie to wake up – a first for me. All our bags are lined up down the hallway, ready for the drive. Words cannot describe how excited I am about getting out of London and having some precious alone time with Tim. And not to mention
finally
getting to meet his new boss Alex and the rest of the guys he’s been spending so much time with in Bangalore.

       
Tim’s suitcase was pretty easy to organise, as he’s just flown in from Bangalore, where they now, thankfully, have a full laundering service – so have merely added a few more casual clothes and shoes for good measure. He’s staying on at the manor house for a week, doing more team-building things, and then going straight back to Bangalore for four weeks. (Just our luck that August is near enough to a five-week month this year.) But I’m trying not to think about that right now, imagining instead the fabulously decadent time we are going to have together in the lap of five-star luxury.

       
This is rather an auspicious occasion too. It’s the first time
ever
that ‘partners’ have been allowed to come to one of Tim’s conferences – albeit for just one night and the welcome dinner. And from what he’s told me of previous years, they are quite opulent affairs – very much a staff reward. And goodness knows they deserve it this year, with all the travelling that they’ve been doing.

       
It takes two hours for Tim to get out of bed, do his yoga (I guarantee he’s more evangelical about it than Fi), have a shower, read the paper, play with Millie, take copious photos of Millie, get Millie fed and changed, and pack the car before we’re finally en route to the motorway. And after only one turn-back (not my fault this time – Tim forgot a work CD-Rom) we are still on schedule to drop Millie off at my parents’ house before checking in mid-afternoon. (And maybe taking full advantage of the four-poster bed and a cheeky bubble bath, pre-dinner.)

       
As we settle into the rhythm of the motorway, I can almost feel the car stretching its limbs as it flees the shackles of stop-start inner-city traffic. And though it’s nice to be zooming along on the open road, it has to be said that I am also a little on edge, thanks to talking to all the people from Marco’s play. I guess it’s not until you’re faced with the reality of motor-vehicle accidents that you think about them. My incessant nagging about Tim’s driving justified, in my mind at least, by the added responsibility of Millie asleep in the back.

       
Horror-road-smash-paranoia aside, I’m loving being cocooned with Tim and Millie in our tiny car capsule. (Our little trio – together at last!) Listening to the radio. Daydreaming. For a brief moment, it feels like the old us. Of free-flowing busy lives that intersected for mid-week dinner dates and lost weekends away. The us that talked non-stop about work projects and current affairs.

       
Speaking of current affairs, albeit local, I fill Tim in on the latest news.

       
‘Mary’s clinic is being renovated. Sophie saw it being boarded up the other day on her way to work – with loads of builders in there.’ Hoorah. ‘It’s only thirty years overdue.’ The last time I got Millie weighed, the central heating had come on (in mid-July) and wasn’t able to be turned off. It was practically sub-Saharan. ‘And while they’re at it, maybe they’ll get Mary an assistant. She’s always late because she has so many house visits to do. The mere thought of her gridlocked waiting room is enough to give me heart palpitations.’ Her first-come, first-served appointment system often leads to buggy-rage in the corridor.

       
Tim appears annoyingly unmoved by my news, and is clearly more interested in the stream of texts and emails that have just announced their arrival on his BlackBerry. (Work, of course.) He’s permanently got one ear and eye tuned in to that bloody phone – he even sleeps with it under his pillow.

       
‘You shouldn’t be doing that, you know,’ I chastise maybe a little curtly as he checks the messages while driving. What could be so important that it can’t wait until the next stop?

       
A little piqued by Tim’s distant mood, I decide to flick through the latest
Hello!
and come across an advertisement with a very cute baby. I’m instantly reminded of Victoria’s latest triumph, which I mention to him.

       
‘Allegra’s going to be the new Johnson’s baby.’ An old PR colleague of hers asked if they could use a photo of Allegra for their pitch – and they won. ‘Mind you, Allegra is an incredibly beautiful baby in that perfect baby-commercial sort of way.’ I’m guessing Millie’s flame-red Mohican hairdo (from Tim’s side of the family) and double chin (my side, unfortunately) wouldn’t quite fit the bill. ‘Victoria’s going to be insufferable after this.’

       
Admittedly, I’m still in shock after seeing Allegra’s baby album yesterday. (Victoria showed it off at Bambini Yogalini – another of the many groups I’ve been bullied into joining at her house, for fear of damaging Millie’s future chances in life.) I have never seen anything so beautiful. Ever. I tell Tim how Victoria’s done an album page for each week of Allegra’s life to date. (I’m serious – each week.) She’s decorated it with solid silver angels and antique French lace. It’s truly an heirloom. There are at least two A4 pages of diary writing per week too – saying how privileged she is to be a mother; and how she relishes just sitting and watching the dreams roll across Allegra’s face as she frowns and smiles in her sleep in the shadow of the morning sun, blah de blah de blah.

       
I still have all of Millie’s photos, since the day she was born, on the digital camera. And haven’t a clue how to get them to the PC, let alone edited, printed and put in an album. Blogging is the sum total of my technical prowess. (I’m truly bowled over when I see my contributions make it on to Shoe Princess; and I’ve even joined the Funky Mammas SP sub-group.) Tim’s been promising me he’ll sort out the photos, but we get so little shared time these days – it’s just one of the many jobs that never seem to get done. I don’t like to badger him about it, as the fraction of time we do have together is spent paying bills and balancing the books – it’s stressful enough.

       
Tim’s so tired when he gets back from Bangalore. He invariably spends the weekend in bed sleeping off jetlag and exhaustion (they work horrifically long hours), and the week working like crazy to catch up with everything in the London office. And then it’s back to Bangalore again on Sunday afternoon. We have no social life to speak of. Honestly, I’ve almost given up on being a normal couple. (Though I will concede the yoga continues to expand Tim’s prowess in the bedroom.)

       
But I guess I mustn’t grumble – it’s not like he’s working on an oil rig in the North Sea or serving in a war zone. He’s
always
at the end of a computer or a phone, and that in itself is comforting. Plus, I’ve become quite the home handywoman – am now rather a dab hand at regrouting tiles and fixing plumbing problems!

       
I’ve no idea how Victoria gets the time for the album, though. For like Tim, her husband works very long hours, with lots of business travel. But then again even Sophie, the ardent anti-fuss mum, has put together a memory box for Hugh.

       
‘Poor Millie, she’ll not only grow up thinking that her dad’s a 2-D image on a computer screen, but that her mum was a slummy mummy too bone lazy to collate a baby album,’ I lament.

       
I’m waiting for Tim to jump in about Millie’s undeniable beauty and what an outstanding job I’m doing in the mothering department, but am met by a cone of silence. He’s completely zoned out.

       
I suddenly feel quite aggrieved.

       
‘You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you?’

       
‘What? ... Yes ... Yes I have,’ he says with an indignant bristle. I’m not convinced.