Buggy-rage

One school-run down, three to go, and now I have 2 hours all to myself, yippee!! First I need to have a cuppa and calm down after the stress of getting one able-bodied-yet-reluctant child into one school and a willing-but-unable-to-walk child into the one next door. It’s dawned on me during these last three weeks since I had to re-join the buggy-brigade just how much I have been taking for granted since the children stopped needing to use the pushchair. Luckily most Mamans outside the school are wise to me now and get themselves and their kids out of the way when they see me coming but there is always one who stands there looking at me as if to say ‘Make them walk why don’t you?’. Er, have you been living on the moon for the last three weeks or what? thinks I. And then you get the lazy ones who park their cars half on the pavement to get that extra 10 metres closer to the school so I can’t get past. I cracked this morning and left a note on one Renault Espace. She’ll know it’s me of course, though, because the grammar is bound to be all wrong plus I don’t write in the flowery French script everyone is taught here. Bit of a give-away so I hope it doesn’t come to an argument! Having been here so long now they all expect me to speak perfect French and quite a few have stopped to ask me about Poppet’s leg recently. I think I am making sense most of the time but in every conversation there is a point where they frown and I realise they’re losing my thread. Oh well. I am making no apologies for being an alien.

But hey, it’s Friday! And it’s felt like one long old week. Nobby got back from Sweden (not Swindon) on Tuesday night armed with presents for all of us. He bought me some perfume by Hugo Boss called Boss Woman. Aptly chosen I thought, clearly he knows who’s in charge round here. Unfortunately he lost his phone during the trip so I can’t send him bossy texts all day any more. When I told Pickle Daddy had lost his phone he frowned and said ‘He’s lost it? But that’s what we normally do’ (meaning him and Poppet). Ah, the wisdom of the young. Pickle himself has been ill again this week. I think it’s back-to-school-itis: they keep those classrooms at about 30 degrees hence incubating all the germs they’ve all picked up on their summer travels and by mid-September half the class is off sick. He was up half the night on Monday coughing and wheezing so it was off to the doctors looking like a pair of zombies on Tuesday morning and I am dosing him with antibiotics now. And trying to ensure there are always tissues within easy reach, by which I mean pretty much in his hand because if there is any effort involved he uses his t-shirt instead. It doesn’t seem to bother him going round with snotty shoulders but personally I’d prefer to be able to cuddle him without the risk of sticking.

But it’s going to be a busy weekend again, no rest for the wicked. Last weekend we wanted to get Poppet off the sofa and out in the sunshine so we went en famille to the ‘Pick-Your-Own’ farm on Saturday afternoon. She languished in her pushchair pointing out all the discarded comedy veg she wanted me to pick up for the ‘collection’ she was making for her stuffed bear; carrots that look like a pair of legs, potatoes that look like a pair of buttocks, that sort of thing. Then she started snacking on a carrot fresh from the field, dirt and all. Mmm, yummy. I just thought about the vitamins and let her get on with it. The only thing she could really help with picking was the raspberries so Pickle and Nobby did most of the harvesting and had a lovely time while she and I grappled with the spiky raspberry bushes. Of course for the rest of the weekend all they wanted to eat was crisps so most of the veg is still tucked up in the dark in the garage now.

On Sunday once Nobby had left for the airport I had the great idea of taking the kids to the local Brocante – it’s a cross between a car-boot sale and a flea market and the whole town closes down for the day so the residents can clear out their attics and garages and flog their unwanted possessions - and let’s face it total tat - on pasting tables and rugs up and down the street. It only takes place once a year so it’s about a mile long and packed solid for the whole day but it’s a good source of cheap toys that they can break at their leisure and last year we even kitted out the whole family with second-hand roller blades for about 10 euros. So I bravely set off with the double buggy and a pile of cash and we returned a couple of hours later with four more Barbies with a talking car and horse-and-sleigh and three more Action Men, one of whom has a parachute. Pickle started launching the parachutist off my balcony and I had visions of him following it down – it’s about the height of the slide Poppet broke her leg on so naturally I was having kittens watching him. So I taught him how to fling it up underarm from the ground instead which he accepted. Then he had the brilliant idea of flinging it underarm from the top of the climbing frame to get more height. I think perhaps I should have plumped for the deep-sea-diver Action Man instead…

Anyway, this weekend there is French school tomorrow morning, including the annual parents meeting, where the teachers get us all in a room and tell us how they will be challenging our little darlings this year. They make us all sit on the children’s chairs and keep quiet until they’ve finished so it’s a real power trip for them and a dreadful flashback to being 6 years old for us. The children all go off and watch television during the meeting, lucky things. I know where I’d rather be considering how hard I have to concentrate to follow the French. Saturday afternoon should be more fun though, when two little friends are coming for a sleepover while their parents go to a wedding in Paris. The children have been excited about it all week. Pickle has already made up a bed on the floor in his room and even put out some of his favourite pyjamas for the little boy, and I’ve heard the little girl has been telling her Mummy how she’s going to sleep in the same bed with Poppet. Hopefully she’ll change her mind once we point out Poppet’s plastered leg and the cute little bed I’m making up for her on the floor.

So check back here on Monday and I’ll let you know how it’s gone, and whether we actually managed to see any of the rugby. I am hoping that the girls will play Barbie and the boys will play trains and they’ll all be knackered and in bed by 8pm. Hmm. Place your bets, please.