If my head wasn’t screwed on…

I annoy myself sometimes.

Today I had to go into town. Regular readers will no doubt be aware this is not my favourite pastime. But, at least the weather was grey and drizzly today, which had the benefit of clearing town of window shoppers.

What annoyed me about this trip was that, if I’d have been paying attention (and read all the school notes), I could have done this errand weeks ago.

But me, being me, I thought the school shop (located at the school and ran by mothers on Tuesday afternoons) had forgotten to offer me a navy cardigan for J. So yesterday, I arrived at school extra early (wow!) and waited for the shop to open.

As I queued I got chatting with another mother and discovered, you don’t get the cardigans from school, Marks and Spencer’s will do! I stepped out the queue somewhat sheepishly, and thus the trip to town this morning.

But it seems I’m on a roll, because this afternoon, having palmed S off on the Godmother I went to pick J up knowing full well we had to hurry to get the boys and head up to her swimming class.

This time I forgot J’s swimming kit (left out on the kitchen worktop, so I wouldn’t forget!) luckily I remembered as I sat in her school car park. And more amazingly my mobile phone had enough power left to make a call (amazing because I never remember to charge it, or when I do, I forget to bring it out the house).

I decided it would be best if I picked up J, went home to get the kit, then picked the boys up before heading up to the pool. The BH was the lucky recipient of my super-quick message ‘My phone’s about to run out! You have to call the school, but I don’t have their number, tell them I’ll be ten minutes late to pick up the boys.’

And off I dashed to get J.

(Umm, and I think I’ll mention the teacher too. She very nice, and very young. And looks straight through me. I know she knows who I am because J’s had a couple of difficult mornings and I’ve had to go in so they can drag J from my waist. And yet each afternoon, she passes out children to the people all around me and totally ignores me till there’s no one in the class left! At first I thought maybe she wanted to talk to me, but she hasn’t bothered yet. And this is getting annoying because J has accused me of always being late! Hey, I’m late for a lot of things in my life, but not my child’s first week of school pick up!)

But enough said on the teacher and I’ll get back to the forgotten swim kit. Having eventually collected J, I hurried her towards the car (which unfortunately was parked further away today).

“Slow down, Mummy.”

“No darling, we have to run home and pick up your swimming kit before we get the boys.”

She stopped dead in her tracks and gave me a look of horror.

“It’s alright, we’ll make it on time!” I said pulling her along.

“But why do we have to run? Why can’t we use the car?”

It was enough to make me pause and smile.


P.S. J's just come in to give me a hug and say 'Thank you for my school, it's really good." Aawwwww...