I should have had a clue when I spotted Emily’s favourite sweatshirt crumpled and damp on the bottom of the dirty clothes pile. Darn! I forgot to do the washing.
I don’t like Thursdays. On Thursdays I have to wake the kids, feed the kids, dress the kids, make packed lunches for the kids and get the kids to school before they lock the school gate. And we need to do this all 15 minutes ahead of schedule.
(Apologies to my English readers for my use of the word kids – but the term really fits, my children are more like bleating animals than little people.)
Why was I telling you this? Oh, yes, we need to do this all early so I can drive the kids to school (instead of our usual 10-minute walk) so that as soon as the kids are safely occupied in school, I can jump in the car and drive like a mad woman to Oxford to just about make a class that starts at 10.
“But that’s my favourite jumper mummy, why didn’t you wash it?” Emily demands.
My body tenses. Heaven knows why she can't wear one of the other dozen school sweatshirts in her drawer that don't have baked beans on them.
At this moment, Scottish grandma, who has been visiting for three weeks and is leaving today to go back to the land of fried Mars Bars, decides to give the girls their parting gifts – a skipping rope for Alexandra, a deck of playing cards for Emily, and a colouring book for HM.
“Mummy, why did Emily get card games?”
“Mummy, why did Alexandra get a skipping rope?”
“Mummy, HM scribbled on my cards!”
Scottish grandma ignores this and is now going on about how today looks like it's going to be a dry one.
This is payback I’m sure for the time I told my mother I hated the dolly that she had carefully picked out for me at the discount store for my seventh birthday and what I really wanted was a pony. A real one.
I looked at my watch. Ten minutes before the whistle blows.
Somehow we all get into the car – three little girls, three packed lunches, three book bags, three rain coats and one stroller.
As I pull out, rain drops start to splat on the windscreen, making it difficult to see if there any spaces on the side of the road large enough to park my dark blue lexus.
What was I thinking? Of course there aren't any parking spaces. We've left it too late. I'm in a queue of late mums that are frantically looking for parking. I turn the corner, still no spaces. Cut off car to loop round (was that the PTA chair?) Still not spaces.
“Mummy, why are we going past our house?”
Find parking space five houses from our starting point. Get out. Grab rain jackets and run down hill. Underarms getting damp. Heart racing. Get to school gate just as the long queues of children file into class. Breathe sigh of relief.
“Mummy, you forgot our book bags”.
Photo credit: Emma Bradshaw
