Wednesday 25 April 2007

The trials and tribulations of a would be Yummie

....who would much prefer to stay in last week’s jeans and watch bugs!
So there am I on a glorious sunny Sunday afternoon hoovering all the dog hairs out of my decrepit Landrover Discovery. I have a 4x4 and I am proud of it – it is now a teenager, it rusts and the only reason I drive it is so that I can peer regally out of it into my neighbours’ front rooms. And as Roger kindly reminds me it was free.
So my whole argument for driving this gas guzzling, rust bucket is that I prefer to view life from the top and that I didn’t have to pay for it – well quite!
On that basis why the heck am I so concerned about its appearance? Well it’s the start of the school term! Obvious isn’t it. I’m supposed to be a Yummy Mummy. Everyone’s cars are immaculate – it does help that they are actually brand new while mine has been ‘off’ and well passed its sell by date for years. So I clean it internally, then set about washing, buffing and polishing it on the outside, knowing full well that as soon as I finish the chickens will be gallivanting along the top of it and sliding down the windscreen ‘cos it’s fun, the turtle dove in the barn will decide that going outside is far to much of a bother and knows I will understand because it has got eggs and really can’t be forced outside - not now!
Dust will blow and to be honest anyone looking at her from the outside will never know or even comprehend the time spent trying to get her up to mustard just for a school run at sparrow’s fart on Monday morning.
Luckily for me the school run is put off for 24 hours as The Boy is violently ill all over my antique black and pink paisley eiderdown (a family heirloom and one I have coveted for many years. Just my luck that as soon as I get my sticky paws on it that that would happen.)
Tuesday dawns: now I am concerned about my apparel; however with a raging temperature and slightly high on The Boy’s Calpol I toss these societal bagatelles to one side and am deliberately late to school thus avoiding condemnation – but that is not the way to carry on and sooner or later the inevitable will have to be faced.
So today I find myself sniffing my clothes – a sure fire freshness test because frankly I do not want to have to go to the bother of having to wear clean jeans or a brand new clean shirt if I can possibly avoid it, but guilt, horror, peer pressure prevails and I land up changing three times and going up and down stairs so many times to change my shoes that I feel like a Jack in the box and all before 7am!
I do not go as far as plying myself with makeup, doing my nails or bouffing up my hair - come on I am not a professional after all. So semi clean car – cos the dog did land up being sick in it after my meandering return the previous day and I haven’t quite got round to clearing it out – semi clean me, one Boy and one baby and a small terrorist who has promised not to be sick. We set off in good time to enter the fray.
The school is some 15 miles away set in beautifully manicured grounds; huge oaks to climb in, fabulous area to get lost in and all safe – after all THAT is why we pay for it. And then there is the long sylvan drive to the car park where all the other Yummy Mummies are present and correct – and try as I might I am always late and it is always chaos for us. We have to drive past all the other Yummies perched in their fabulous, glistening, clean Range Rovers, VWs, Audis, Mercedes, donned head to toe in Boden/Gap/LK Bennet splendour. Beautifully accessorised. And am I jealous? Am I envious? – For a minute YOU BET! Then to be honest I think hard about what I have done to get here and do I really care? No ‘cos it’s much too much like hard work and my biggest thrill of the day, outside my boys, was finding a newly hatched Holly Blue in the garden. Its wings iridescent blue in the sunlight and I marvelled at it. So delicate, so perfect - something I will never be and frankly just can’t be bothered to be but there is still that niggling doubt that I should be…so I will change umpteen times, clean the car and try and try to be grown up like the rest of them. It’s all a bit Stepford isn’t it?

14 comments:

Un Peu Loufoque said...

Just be you dearie just be you...

Sally Townsend said...

As His Lordship and I used to have to point out 'Darlings we actually own the car' !

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

no point in trying really. just smile and look serene. above all that (as you must be by the holly blue)

Pipany said...

Gave up trying to compete with the wives years ago, though ours are more of the Footballer variety! xx

Milkmaid said...

We have a right old mixed bag of mummies, ranging from the Audi gang and Chelsea tractors, down to the clapped out 4x4's I'm inbetwwen at the mo, as S just changed from clapped out pickup, to nice newish pickup, but def not a CT

Pondside said...

Sounds like it's time for some reverse snobbery - you are way beyond and better than yummy mummy and an old car is like a badge of honour. Just think of the carbon credits you should have for not being responsible for all the resources used for a shiney new one!....at least that's what I tell myself!

countrymousie said...

Just found your blog - took me ages to get back up the drive for all the yummy ones taking kids to nearby public school. Were you amongst them I wonder only being just down the road. I am now pulling up the drawbridge around my moat!

Inthemud said...

Who cares what you drive,If you've got a 4x4 far better an old one, It looks properly used and loved for what it was made for!
We have a car for every occasion here, but nothing new!

lixtroll said...

Matron has just popped in to tell you not to worry, the chat room has gone down temporarily owing to an error on Google which is preventing us cleaning out the fosses to make room for new posts!

You can still blog away merrily here on your own page, and to leave comments on all the others.

lixtroll said...

Matron is visiting again with an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

The chat-room is experiencing problems with overloading which we think is causing it to be marked as SPAM, which is in effect locking us all out :-

So in the mean time: each day please look out for the post called ANNOUNCE NEW BLOGS HERE and put your announcements in as comments on that post.

This will still leave space for one personal post per person which we can all comment on.

This is purely a temporary measure, we are keen to get the chatroom back to the weird and wonderful way it was going before - we are looking into various options at the moment (by the way, have you noticed that option is an anagram of potion) - WesterWitch! put down that cauldron!

annakarenin said...

Thankfully mine walk but there is a severe derth of y.m's around here. When I do saunter up to school to drop no 3 off at nursery everyone panics if I am on time presuming they are late. As I said on JoA comment I have never strived for perfection, so don't bother as you say it's the little things like your Holly BLue that count perfection without the striving.

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

just noticed you are a another georgette heyer fan. been my guilty secret for years.

Anonymous said...

Hey Tattie don't worry - they are probably envious of you post ironic Yumminess.

muddyboots said...

fortunatly, l never fell into the realm of the 'yummie mummie', Harry used the school bus so l didn't need to apply the slap. great at 8.00am. odd occasions l did pick the little darling up [was he ever that small] l avoided those YM's & if appraoched, [rareley] just applied my best Cheltonian accent. not that l'm a snop like.

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