Aghhhhhhh! It is not often that I feel compelled to write this blog immediately after the event has occurred (It normally takes me months!!!) but I feel that somehow writing it down might act as therapy! I feel the urge to get things off my chest and, as anyone who knows me can testify, with a chest the size of mine, that is hell of a lot of things I need to get off!!!! It will probably come out as garbled mess but feel free to just scratch your heads and wonder what on earth I am talking about! (If proof were needed... I have just written that sentence in capitals and have had to go back and write it again!).
I have just dropped Anna off for her second day at Playschool. Any fears of Anna hating her new school and begging to be taken back to her old one were quickly evaporated as she emerged from school on her first day.
'I love school Mummy. I don't want to go home. Can I stay?'
She talked about it all afternoon including names of all the teachers, all the toys and children who were there along with their parents occupations... and that is where the current problem lies.
I have just been stood in the pouring rain, feeling cold and wet while I have listened to the trials and tribulations of owning horses, taking the Range Rover for a service and not having the leather interior cleaned properly and how that last 2 pounds of weight just won't shift! Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
I knew I was in trouble when Anna and I strolled up the front gate of the school and saw three brand new range rovers parked on the road.
In the playground, there were 2 distinct groups of parents. The one group of mothers were all dressed in the latest running gear with immaculate trainers looking like they have never ran more than 100 yards in them. Apparently, this is the 'Mummy Running Club' (That is what they call themselves) that takes place in the village every Friday morning at 9.15am. It is ran by a man called 'Owen' who is (and I quote) 'Absolutely delightful and very pleasing on the eye'. One mother informed the group that she was considering hiring him as her personal trainer but would just tell her husband that the money was going to charity, where she volunteers on a Wednesday.
The second group was the horsey set. They were all dressed in their barbour jackets and Joules jumpers with their muddy wellies (At this point, I have to admit that I was in my wellies too but it was raining and at least I was not about to go mucking out and bragging about it!!). The conversation went something along the lines of ' Stable Fees are ghastly at the moment and don't even get me started on the fees to re-shoe. Poor Willow had a stumble in the paddocks yesterday and I could not get her back in her stable. Now she needs new shoes which are going to cost, at least, a good few hundred. It is all a ghastly nightmare' while all the other mum's nod in agreement. I am not exaggerating!
They are all dressed immaculately without a hair out of place and make-up looking pristine. Meanwhile, I am stood there with rain dripping off my nose, my hair looking like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards and not an inch of designer clothes on me. Oh dear! I bet they all serve organic food to their little darlings every day and insist that Waitrose is the only place to get their groceries. It was like one of those scenes you see in a comedy sketch but, unfortuantely, this was real and these mother's do exist!
For any passer-by, they would have been able to pick out the passer-by from a mile off as Anna and I stood in the corner on our own! You are probably all thinking that I should have just joined in but I have not the faintest idea about horses and would struggle to tell one end of a horse from another and, as for the running... Ha Ha Ha! If I turned up wearing Running gear, people would think I was off to a fancy dress party.
So I have 2 choices, I can continue to look like a complete outsider who has stumbled into the wrong party and doesn't know what the hell is going on or I can become one of them! I don't relish the prospect of either. If I ever start whinging about stable prices and the fact that Anna needs a bigger pony as she has outgrown her pony called Jasper, you have permission to shoot me! I may own a pair of Joules wellies but that is where the similarities between me and the horsey set end.
Maybe I could be accused of positive discrimination. Maybe I am being an inverted snob who expected it to be like this and so fail to see the true picture. However, I find it hard to believe that talking about the millions it costs in stable fees and how the kitchen needs 'tradesmen to look at it' can be perceived as anything other than rather well-to-do! Maybe you are all sat there reading this thinking that I only have myself to blame. After all, we were the one's who chose to move to the country and live in a nice village with nice houses. However, is it to much to ask for a nice school in a nice village with some normal down-to-earth parents who don't look and sound like they have just walked off the set of a Jilly Cooper adaptation!
Therefore, I am on a mission to seek out the mum who is feeling like me and we can become an exclusive little club together. Unfortunately, they seem rather thin on the ground at the moment but I can live in hope! Then all of those other mother's can all look at us and not have the faintest idea what we are talking about as we discuss the latest going-on in Eastenders or how Fish Fingers just dont taste like they used to!
Right... I am off to do the ironing while watching Jeremy Kyle, just to feel normal again!
