Being Middle Class: Acting like a fishwife

Today is a day NOT to mess with me....

If I were terribly, terribly, middle class and frightfully, frightfully proper I wouldn’t have done wot I did in the Tesco Car Park at lunchtime.

I think my father would have described me as acting like a fishwife. At least that would be the polite version.

Mea Culpa

I hold up my hands.

Guilty as charged

BUT

But  I did have an excuse.

Honest.

Come on have you ever had to work from home AND get your kids to do holiday work?

It’s a recipe for disaster and there is a lot to be said for just giving up and giving in and letting them kick back in front of the TV all day eating crisps. It would be so much easier if I did and I’d get a heck of a lot more work done.

But I know better of course.

I get my kids to do their holiday work come hell or high water and it’s usually both.

They whine, I rumble.

They whine some more and muck about, I growl loudly

They stubbornly refuse to get on with it and I start to shout

They shout back and I explode and there are lots of tears.

After about two hours they settle down for five minutes to get on with it and are then distracted and start to whine all over again about how unfair it is that they have to do holiday work when surely none of their friends have to do any…at this point I go into melt down and basically everything all goes horribly wrong.

I storm out of the house leaving a rather shell shocked family behind. I jump in the car and slew my way down the gravel drive before hurtling into town and Tesco where I intend to pick up sandwiches for lunch and grab some cash – any excuse to get me out of the house so I won't actually carry out my threat of murdering my two boys.

So there I am wondering around the Tesco car park and I see a space; I drive into it then notice there is a space in front that I can drive into allowing me a quick forward getaway when I have finished my chore. But there are two, I’ll call them ladies, gossipping in the space. I nudge my car forward to get them to move so I can park.They stop talking and glare at me momentarily before carrying on.

I wait for them to move.

They don’t.

I rev the engine a little more in case they don't realise that I wish to park where they are standing. I expect them to raise their hands in apology and move away.

They don't instead older woman barks out: “What’s your problem.” Before turning her back on me to carry on talking to her friend.

Normally I would have got all embarrassed and apologised for trying to park and all that but today I have had enough.

Today I am NOT going to be polite.

Today no one had better get in my way.

I flip.

Today I am a real witch.

I rev the car more and hit the horn LONG and LOUD as I drive forward.

"What do you think you are playing at!!" she hollers at me.

"I am parking my car..."

"You could park anywhere!"

"But I don’t want to park anywhere," I say sweetly through gritted teeth."I wish to park here..."

"Well am talking to my friend and I can talk to my friend wherever I like!"

"Great next time try doing it in the middle of the motorway. In the meantime I am parking my car right where your standing - so shift…"

I am not sure if I would have driven right over them but I am glad that they thought I might have driven straight over them.

They even backed right off when I got out of the car still hurtling insults as they walked away.

I should have left it like that.

But as I said: NOT today.

I stalk after them with murder plainly written across my face.

"You want to take this further? Do you? Come on then…"

I honestly believe that I would have got into a full on scrap there and then in the middle of the Tesco car park – talk about anger transference!

They scarpered and I felt…

Brilliant!

It was a total relief.

No shaking, no guilt, no shame.

Went into Tesco and was utterly charming to everyone.

Frightfully Middle Class….

Too clever by half...

The Boys are on holiday, I am working and I’ve got the builders in (when do I not have the builders in!), it means I am distracted to say the least. Anyway, sometimes I think I can do it all and I get too clever by half.

This morning I had one of those moments. Working hard and calling people on the telephone, trying to make deadline to actually keep my job requires a lot of juggling especially when I am also trying to manage builders, plumbers, painters, gardeners, and odd job men – please I do nothing by halves at this place – just adds to the frisson of excitement that makes up my usual workaday life. Add to that the vagaries of keeping two little boys amused and you might understand why I might just might get a tad confused.

I had been trying to keep the boys entertained without resorting to the TV as that would make me a “Bad Mommy” and we all have standards/guilt to accommodate, I was failing. So I sent them outside. For a while there was blissful silence but then I heard squeaking and name calling and “I’m going to tell on you!” right in the middle of an interview which I was trying to listen to with a semblance of professionalism, so I closed my office door effectively blocking out my boys. I heard them stomp upstairs, huff outside my door and retreat. I did not hear them go back downstairs. There were more squeaks and squeals emanating at intervals during the interview so after it had finished I went off in search of the trouble makers. I stalked down the corridor, there was an ominous silence. I heard scuffling in the upstairs bathroom and I noted a strong stench of cleaning fluid and a lonesome loo roll weaving along the corridor.

Got the little blighter I thought with satisfaction, he’ll not be doing this again and bellowed in stentorian accents as I approached the bathroom: “YOU CAN JUST STOP WHAT YOU ARE BLOODY DOING RIGHT NOW YOUNG MAN!!!!”

There was pause as the guilty party thought about the problem then a voice, about several octaves blow that of my youngest, said:

“Ummm I was just cleaning the loo so I could sort it out as you asked me….”

It was the plumber….!!!!!!

Bringing up boys: Oh the embarrassment!!!!

Oh God I want to curl up and die, I really, really do! I have never been so embarrassed in all my life and I should have known!

It all started with me clearing out my office. I have been clearing and organising since June last year and don’t necessarily feel I am making much headway. But I must be as I have been sorting out all the stuff and other paraphernalia in an old wicker box which has been largely overlooked for the last ten years.

It has been wonderful to find lost goodies from college days: terrible poetry full of a young woman’s angst, as well as letters and even my first ever play slip. And of course there were all the cards and doggerel from my Hen Party, some of it seriously risqué - Thank God my boys cannot read yet!

Anyway I was caught out on the telephone at bedtime and decided to take the call in my office. The boys wanting me to say good night to them lurked around the door, looking with great delight at all the stuff all over the office floor.

I indicated for them to go away with a flick of my hand. They stayed there glued to the door frame. I mouthed: “Bugger off!” and made even more frantic hand signals to them while I carried on my conversation.

But boys being boys have a tendency to peer and prod and poke their noses in where they really shouldn’t be and amid great squeals of delight they scampered off.

Finishing the call I stalked after them to put them to bed unaware that they had run off with a bit of treasure, that is until The Boy admitted he had stolen from my office. I asked what was taken and just as he handed me the small black box, I heard the dogs barking and Bog Boy running down the corridor to the stairs so he could see who it was at the door.

I looked at the box in my hand as The Boy said: I’m sorry Mum I think I have lost what was in it. I think Bog Boy has it….”

At that moment I heard Bog Boy answer the door.

My heart missed a beat and then I flushed from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair…

“Will you help me blow my balloon up?”

As I shot down the corridor as fast as I could I heard the mellifluous tones of my next door neighbour exclaiming what a pretty balloon and Bog Boy’s innocent piping voice adding: “Look, it even glows!”

PS: For reasons of good taste I could not possibly illustrate this post.....

Cybermummy: It's a nightmare and it's not even open yet!

We all look suitably wide eyed and worried at least the two or three women I've seen wandering slightly self consciously round the foyer. We've passed each other and coyly lifted our gaze as we pass, a tentative smile on our lips and a frantically beseeching look in our eye; Help! it says. But we're English and we pass by; it's too early yet. In fact there is an hour and a half to go!
I've sought solace in a high backed sofa on the opposite side of the entrance so I can spot in peace. They drift in in ones at present no gaggle yet laughing raucously and chatting too loud. Just the ones who no doubt have travelled half the length and breadth of the country to get here and land up being far too early. Oh the embarrassment...
Some come in full of confidence others slightly more nervously self consciously flicking their hair:
Her: Excuse me can you point me in the direction of the ladies?
Ah the haven of the ladies loos...
Here comes another one, more confident striding through the foyer definately knows where she is going and bouyed by the thought that if launch myself from the sofa I too can wing it and those on the otherside of the double doors will never know that I am not as confident as I seem; here goes...
8.45am: Bollocks crashed and burned. I return to the bonkette and want to curl up and die. OK it's not that serious but my tummy is doing flips and I so wanted to seem to know what the heck I was doing too.
8.47am; Have just finished a call with Dear Charlie and confessed my sins. I couldn't face a the tube on the way over so undulged in a taxi. The problem with having a husband who works in London and uses taxis is that he knows to the penny how much I spent.
Him: What £20 or £30 quid. No lunch for you then!
Bollocks I hate it when he does that makes me feel I complete spendthrift. Problem is I am. The cost fo the Taxi was nearly as much as the train journey on the way down...
8.50am; This is getting bad. Am now surrounded by Japanese tourists. Teenage Japanese tourists and am definitley going to be sick. Great wafts of manly aftershave and sherbert scented perfume envelop me.
8.52 am: Decide to go and blog to take my mind off things. Land up having to use computer with screen facing the door. Terrified people will see and feel ludicrously embarrassed again. Shit the computer freezes on me and my blog page is glowing for all to see. Die die die I want to die! I pluck up courage to ask the deliciosuly geeky boy next door to me to help he's gorgeously kind to a demented old bat and suggests I ask for help. Well I did and thought all young men knew about computers. Needless to say I spend time closing down the screen whenever people walk behind me so they cannot see. God this is difficult! Will people stop looking over my shoulder. Techno guy pops his head in and switches on the screen again for all to see. I want to spread myself across it to keep it from prying eyes. Oh thank heavens I am on and off so to speak...please dear god may the day get better...
Getting very loud in the foyer. Better gird my loins and off I go
Wish me luck!