How to get out of going to school – Lesson One

I couldn’t believe it was already the end of the summer holidays. We came back from the Vendee last Saturday and school started today so I was running about during the intervening days trying to prepare. We spent hours in the stationery shop getting all the obligatory pens and pencils for school – note to self: don’t get the kids to choose their own, they will without fail always choose the most expensive ballpoint pen you ever saw in your life. Why have a 20p Bic biro when you could have a 5€ Barbie ballpoint with bits of plastic and feathers dangling off it? We practised getting up before lunchtime a few days so the 7am wake-up call on the big day wouldn’t send everyone into a tailspin. Yesterday Poppet and Pickle were up at 7.15 and fed and watered in good time for the school-run so we had an inspection at 8.10, our normal departure time. One slight flaw was that they were both naked as all the clothes are still in the laundry after the holiday. I swear all the clothes are breeding while my back is turned. Nobby and I have done so many washes and there is still a heap in the spare room and you don’t even want to know about the ironing mountain. Suffice to say I caught sight of snow on the upper peaks the other day so it might be time to break out the crampons before eagles start nesting on it.

Anyway, all was going well, the house was gradually getting cleaner, the children were getting over the trauma of leaving their new group of friends behind at the holiday resort and we’d caught up with a few friends in the neighbourhood. Sure there were a few curve balls like the flush on the downstairs loo suddenly breaking while we had a houseful of kids, and the vacuum cleaner having a nervous breakdown over the amount of sand I wanted it to suck out of the car. Then yesterday we were over at Peony’s new house being introduced to her new puppy and we decided to go to a fun park which boasts a huge inflatable with a slide at the end of it and a variety of bikes and cars and things to play on. Pickle had his birthday party there in July so we knew they’d enjoy it and get thoroughly worn out for a good night’s sleep before the return to school. What we weren’t counting on was my 6 year-old, Poppet, jumping off the top of the slide, landing badly and breaking her leg. Yes, I watched my child break her leg yesterday. The irony is she’s been climbing trees and mucking about on bunk beds for 2 weeks on holiday without so much as a scratch but half and hour on a bouncy castle and its sirens all the way to the hospital. So that’s how you get out of going back to school! There were good parts to the aftermath such as the superbly hunky ‘pompiers’ who turned up in the ambulance and carried her off on a stretcher and the blatant queue-jumping for a cubicle in A&E while the trolleys were stacked up in the corridors. The bad bit was seeing my little girl in so much pain – they eventually gave her laughing gas while they set the bone and that was very amusing afterwards when she was all giddy and chatty. I’m so proud of how brave she was and thankful that it was a clean break. As I keep telling myself, it could have been a lot worse. Now all I have to get used to is being her slave until she decides to give the crutches a go and get her backside off the sofa. I mean, who wouldn’t take the chance to languish in front of the TV all day with Mummy at your beck and call, peeling your grapes, carrying you to the loo and wiping your bum? I’m currently taking the reverse psychology route and hoping that if I tell her to stay lying down she’ll want to get up – we’re usually at similar odds so we’ll see what happens.

Anyway, so there we have it, 'c’arrive' (it happens) and it concludes a summer where Sod’s Law has well and truly reigned. Like Alanis Morrisette sang ‘Isn’t it Ironic?’, only I’m not sure she went far enough in my opinion and I suppose ‘Isn’t it Just Sod’s Law’ wouldn’t have had the same ring to it.

‘It’s like rain on your holiday,
a nasty smell when you’ve cleaned and cleaned,
it’s like ten thousand road-signs to Rouen when all you need is one to Paris,
or falling out of trees for weeks on end, then busting your leg on a bouncy castle.’