I did, however, manage to feed and wash and dress the cherubs (well, I didn’t actually wash or dress them, obviously, at nine and eleven they are – allegedly – perfectly capable of doing that themselves; I just hurtled into their rooms and shouted at them to PUT THEIR CLOTHES ON, while Peter messed about with his Lego and Jane complained that she only had the ‘wrong kind’ of socks), and we were all ready(ish), with plenty of time to take the obligatory First Day Photo.
The First Day Photo, as every parent knows, involves finding the corner of your house that looks least like a shithole and hustling your offspring into it, while shouting, ‘SMILE, darlings, JUST FUCKING SMILE. I need one nice photo of you today, just one, so I can send it to your grandparents and show them what adorable poppets you are. And put it on Facebook, so people know I love you! Oh FFS, please, it’s not that hard. You both just have to SMILE and LOOK AT MY PHONE at the same time. No, you BOTH have to look at the phone. Together. No, with your eyes open. Because you’re not fucking looking at the phone if you’ve got your eyes shut, ARE YOU? And SMILE! For the love of God, SMILE!’
Some parents actually have special signs made for their children to hold, with the class the children are going into and jaunty little ‘Back to School’ phrases, the better to smugly remind us all via social media that they are #soblessed and just love #makingmemories, before lamenting that the vacation is just too short and their #mamahearts will be missing their #babies who are #growinguptoofast. I am not one of those mothers. I fear I do not even have a #mamaheart, as sadness is NOT the emotion I feel when my beloved munchkins are returned to the glorious bosom of education after six long bastarding weeks of us #makingmemories that mainly consist of everyone crying into ice-creams after being thwarted once again by the British weather.
It was especially important that I got a suitable photo of the First Day of Term this year, because a) I forgot last year and had to fake it the next day and bribe the children not to tell their grandparents that it was in fact a ‘second day of term’ photo that I sent them (with the inevitably scuffed shoes cropped out) and b) quite astonishingly, it is Jane’s last year at primary school. I can’t quite believe it. Everyone says, ‘Oh, they grow up so fast,’ and I always wanted to snarl, ‘Do they? Really? Because I am not convinced they will grow up at all, ever. I think that my life will now consist of trying to stop this small wrecking ball destroying my house and picking half-chewed organic rice cakes out of my hair, and that is ALL THERE IS NOW!’ but it really doesn’t seem that long ago that I was counting down the days until she could start playgroup, and now she is finishing primary school and next year will be at BIG SCHOOL!
I finally got some approximation of the photo I wanted, but not before I had ended up with an entire camera roll filled with photos of the children pulling faces and sulking, which I will feel guilty about deleting because #firstdayofterm, and, after yet another argument with Jane about why she is not allowed her own Instagram account (‘Because you have to be thirteen! Are you thirteen? No, no, you are not, so you are not having your own account! I don’t CARE if the rest of your class has their own account! It is not happening!’), we were ready for the off, for even I can manage not to be late on the first day of term.
Simon, obviously, wasn’t able to come with us for the first day of term because he had to go to work and be very busy and important. It never fails to astonish me how Simon’s busy and importantness always seems to coincide with school events, so I have to go myself. I used to make a point of talking about ‘MY HUSBAND’ in a loud voice on such occasions, but since my husband never actually materialised I have stopped doing that, as I am afraid that all the teachers think I am a crazy fantasist who has invented a husband for some reason and only wears a wedding ring to affect some strange 1950s notion of ‘respectability’.
Anyway, the children were at least dispatched without further ado – Peter’s teacher is a rather sweet young trainee, but judging by her rather tight and low-cut sweater, there might be a sudden influx of daddies in that class volunteering to take part in school events, and Jane has a new teacher as well – an actual man is teaching in the primary school. Well, I say a man. In truth he is more of a boy – when I saw him in the playground I actually thought he was only slightly taller than an average Year 6.
I suppose this will start happening to me more and more now. First I think the teachers look terribly young, next thing I will be complaining how youthful the policemen are and then insisting I want to see a ‘proper doctor’ as I don’t believe the whippersnapper before me can possibly be properly qualified. Actually, this has almost happened already – the last time I took Judgy to the vet I was unconvinced they had given me a real vet, such was the youth of the Man Child before me. I realised, of course, that clearly he WAS a proper vet, and a highly knowledgeable and skilled one when he exclaimed, ‘Well, that’s a fine wee terrier you’ve got there!’ Anyone who can recognise my dog’s superiority clearly knows his stuff.
Thursday, 8 September
Oh, fuckety fuckety doodah. The interview is tomorrow. TOMORROW. I am not ready for this – what was I thinking? Why would some cool, futuristic, space-age company employ ME? They do not want someone like me who is already complaining that the teachers and doctors and policemen are very young, they want those very young people who should clearly still be at school. At least after much browsing I have found something to wear. I had to go for the stupidly high heels, because I tried a slightly-cropped-pants-with-ankle-boots look in the hope it would make me look like a millennial, but it just made me look like I’d got dressed in the dark and couldn’t find my socks or any pants that fitted. The girls on Pinterest didn’t look like that. Christ, I can’t even pull off dressing as a millennial, so how on earth am I going to pull this off?
I have researched all about the company, and rehearsed my HR-friendly answers, but who knows what people even ask in interviews anymore. Maybe they don’t want to know about my strengths and weaknesses. (I’m a team player, obviously, but sometimes I’m too much of a perfectionist – ha ha! No one tells the truth about their strengths and weaknesses in interviews do they? ‘My biggest strength is actually my ability to sleep at my desk with my eyes open, thus making it appear that I am present and productive, while actually napping, and my main weakness is probably an inability to use the toilet when there is anyone else in there because I am afraid I might inadvertently fart and someone will hear and they will call me FartGirl forever more, so sometimes I end up wasting a lot of time in the bathroom waiting for there to be no one else in there even when I only need a wee.’) But is that what they want to know now? Maybe they’ve gone all ‘blue-sky thinking’ and ‘outside the box’ (Ooooh, another strength – ‘I was the reigning office champion at Buzzword Bingo in my previous job for three years running’), and will ask you ‘zany’ questions about ‘What sort of tree would you be, if you were a tree?’ and ‘Squirrel or raccoon?’ that reveal some hidden psychological depths about you.
Katie across the road came over for a coffee before school pick-up, as her oldest, Lily, has just started school.
‘It feels so strange, Lily being at school,’ said Katie. ‘Just me and Ruby in the house. I don’t know why, because it’s been just Ruby and me while Lily was at nursery, but somehow it feels different. I can’t believe she’s at school. She looked so grown-up going in!’
‘Ha!’ I said. ‘I know. The thing is, you will have thought she looked grown-up now on her first day, but in a couple of years