Playgroups and Prosecco

by Jo Middleton

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Jo Middleton has been blogging at SLUMMY SINGLE MUMMY since 2009. She has two daughters and lives in Somerset. You can find her on twitter, instagram or at www.slummysinglemummy.com

  To Bee and Belle – a constant source of inspiration, literary and otherwise

  Monday 1 January 2018

  There’s nothing quite like the first page of a new diary to make you feel vaguely inadequate, is there?

  I say nothing, but trying on clothes in front of a fourteen-year-old girl is definitely up there in the ‘top ten ways to make yourself want to cry into the fridge’, as I proved last night when I tried to get Flo to have a look at my outfit before I went over to Cassie’s ‘it’s super-casual, Frankie, darling, no need to bring anything as the wine cellar is well stocked’ New Year’s Eve party.

  I’d been feeling understandably anxious since hearing the words wine cellar. Who has a wine cellar? Downton Abbey in 1912, maybe. No one in Dorset in 2018. I’d given myself a good talking to, though, and compiled a new Pinterest board full of inspirational quotes about not comparing yourself to others.

  ‘What do you think?’ I said, swooshing down the stairs and into the lounge, feeling pretty good in my wide-leg trousers and velvet wrap-around top, thigh chub hidden successfully, drawing attention to my relatively small waist, as advised by Lorraine Kelly.

  Flo sighed, looked up from her phone – and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, lifting her voice at the end of the word just a little. Not enough to make it a question exactly, but enough to make me question myself and how I dare to ever go out in public. She looked back down, addressing the next sentence to the screen, as though I had really wasted enough of her time already. ‘I mean it’s fine – you just look a bit like a supply teacher.’

  Hmm. Our regular supply teacher when I was at school was called Mrs Cartman and she had swollen feet that ballooned dangerously out of her orthopaedic shoes.

  ‘In what way?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said dismissively. ‘You look fine.’

  I couldn’t think of anything in my wardrobe that looked less supply teachery, and I didn’t want to risk going back upstairs and waking Jess, so I switched my heels for turquoise Converse and hoped the effect would be suitably sassy.

  I said goodbye, muttering things about how grateful I was and how her sister was asleep already and shouldn’t be any trouble. She told me she’d put the trainers she wanted into my ASOS shopping basket.

  I wish I could say that Cassie’s New Year’s Eve party turned out to be a defining moment in my optimistic fantasy of reinvention, but I‘m not sure it was. When I arrived, Cassie wafted towards me in a cloud of Chanel N°5 and gave me two fake kisses and a glass of prosecco, which I fingered nervously – I’m never sure whether you’re meant to hold it by the glass or the stem. I stood for a while with a couple of women who were talking about children’s tutors, but given that all of Flo’s homework support comes from me, via BBC Bitesize, I didn’t feel I had much to contribute. Fortunately, I spotted one of the mums from Busy Beavers, the playgroup I take Jess to on Thursday afternoons, loitering by the drinks table. She doesn’t know, but I once saw her crouched behind the sand table, eating loose Wotsits out her handbag, so I recognised a kindred spirit.

  Possibly a little too kindred, on reflection. I don’t think Cassie appreciated our Boasty Parent Scotch Bingo. If anything, though, it was the other guests who were to blame. If they hadn’t kept mentioning their children’s achievements, then we wouldn’t have had to do so many shots. My new BFF (surely?) is called Sierra, which is the sort of exotic name I always wish my mum had given me, rather than Frances, which makes me sound like a nun and is why I’ve always made people call me Frankie.

  I’m slightly annoyed with myself for not making more of an effort to mingle, as I wanted my first new diary entry to be full of wit and charm and anecdotes from meetings with interesting strangers. New year, new me and all that jazz. Also, I really do need to make some proper friends. We’ve been in Dorset over a year now and yet I’m still clinging desperately to the idea of London. I guess mid-divorce isn’t necessarily the time for meeting new people and making a positive first impression.

  I thought about looking back through past diaries for inspiration, but I only have one diary from my childhood. It’s from 1990 and has a picture of Garfield on the front. He’s holding a pen but there’s a thought bubble above him that says, ‘I’d rather be eating lasagne’, which is basically me, right now. I wrote every entry in a different coloured ink, which I think shows a decent amount of dedication, but the entries stop on 13 January. Perhaps I ran out of pens.

  Reading over the thirteen days I did manage, I don’t feel like it was any great loss to literature. The highlight is probably 6 January. ‘Went to Sainsbury’s with Mummy, even though I wanted to stay at home, and she let me get two packets of Jaffa Cakes!!!!!’ There’s a little smiley face next to it. I do love Jaffa Cakes. On 8 January I ‘went to Gran and Grandad’s and had a mini milk. Grandad showed me how to do 3D lettering’.

  It’s pretty gripping stuff.

  I was still feeling a little fragile by teatime and Flo had gone to her friend Sasha’s house to watch videos on the internet of strangers take toys out of boxes, so Jess and I had Shreddies for tea and watched Flo’s old High School Musical DVD. I feel it my duty to educate Jess in the classics.

  (Question: how old is Zac Efron in the first HSM?)

  Tuesday 2 January

  Today I had a go at ironing.

  Normally, I’m more of a careful drying-and-folding type of person, but I think I was trying to make up for the lingering shame of Boasty Parent Scotch Bingo. To give some ironing context: about six months ago I had to iron a dress for a hand-fasting ceremony – don’t even ask – and when I got the iron out, Jess covered her ears and looked scared because she didn’t know what it was. Is it OK to get to age three without ever having seen your mum iron?

  I was putting out the recycling last night, though, and I could see down the steps and into the living room of the house that backs on to ours. They quite often have the lights on without closing the curtains – exhibitionists, my gran would have called them, although I’m not sure ironing in public is considered terribly saucy nowadays.

  They clearly don’t realise how often I sneak into the back garden after dark to escape the Disney Channel and scroll through Instagram. I know th
at @simple_dorset_life always makes me feel worse about my life, but I also can’t stop looking. Every time I see a photo of some kind of organic avocado-based brunch she has rustled up between breastfeeds, I remember the time Jess threw a piece of avocado toast at that old woman in the café at the bottom of the hill and she sent me her dry-cleaning bill. The old woman, not Jess.

  Anyway, the woman in the lights-on house was ironing. She was in a white robe with her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail and she was watching what looked like EastEnders. Her husband – I know they’re married because I saw him in Tesco once, buying cat litter, and looked for a ring – was sitting on the sofa with their son, reading books. I watched them for quite a long time because it was such a nice, ordinary family scene. I mean, she did have her back to me, so I couldn’t say for sure that she wasn’t silently crying or anything, but it looked pleasant enough.

  So, today I thought I would get myself a piece of that. I’m turning thirty-eight this year, after all, and ironing feels like something I should be getting into as a woman in my late thirties. Like gardening. Or not eating as many Jaffa Cakes.

  I set up the ironing board and got some books out for Jess. I tried to get Flo to read to her, but she gave the ironing board a funny look and told me she had homework to do. I’m pretty sure this was a lie, but I smiled anyway, said something suitably encouraging, and set about my task. Ten minutes in I realised why I never watch EastEnders – it’s bloody miserable.

  I looked over to Jess to get her to change the channel but she wasn’t sitting happily on the sofa, browsing through her wholesome book selection, as I had pictured her in my mind. I looked back just in time to see her running into the living room with something slopping about in a bowl. She tripped over the iron lead and what looked like milk with bits in sploshed into the basket of Flo’s freshly pressed school uniform.

  Jess immediately started to cry.

  ‘Now my special relaxing drink is ruined!’ she said, sobbing. ‘I made it for you, Mummy,’ she added, as she tried to pick bits of what looked like cheese out of the washing basket.

  I checked. Zac Efron was eighteen when High School Musical came out. Not sure how I feel about myself.

  Wednesday 3 January

  Jaffa Cakes – 7. Times I was forced to watch a small child do a dance involving a dusty piece of ribbon found under the sofa – 4. Inappropriate thoughts about Zac Efron – undisclosed.

  Back to school for Flo this morning, but in their infinite wisdom Jess’s nursery decided that we definitely would not have seen enough of our preschool children over the last two weeks and that we would probably want an extra few days to enjoy some quality bonding time, so I’m off work for the rest of the week. Given that the whole point of nursery is to provide childcare for working parents, it’s not exactly helpful.

  I’ve always been dubious about the term ‘quality time’. It implies the presence of craft materials or cookery books. Whose idea of a quality way to spend time involves glitter?

  I decided we’d spend our quality time going to Tesco to buy fruit and vegetables as I’ve mainly eaten Toblerone since mid-December, but Jess fell asleep in the car on the way. Clearly, she doesn’t want to bond any more than I do. She hardly naps at all since turning three so I made good use of the time by catching up on some personal admin: i.e., looking at Instagram. Apparently @simple_dorset_life was on the beach this morning, doing yoga and drinking a home-made kale smoothie.

  ‘I love the feel of the winter wind’s icy fingers on my face as I move into downward dog,’ the caption read. ‘It’s so cold, but I feel totally alive! I got home to find the twins happily snoozing while Daddy was in the kitchen making a batch of organic buckwheat pancakes. #blessed.’

  I thought about my kitchen at home, which distinctly lacks a daddy or any buckwheat – what even is buckwheat? – and I wondered if @simple_dorset_life ever eats cereal with her hands from the box when Daddy isn’t there. I do want to be her, but also I quite want to watch her try to get a bra wire out of a washing-machine drainage pipe and see how she yogas her way out of that one.

  Jess stayed asleep for ages, but I found half a bottle of strawberry Ribena on the floor of the car so #blessed for me, too.

  Ian came round for Jess after he’d picked Flo up from school. She showed him a picture she’d drawn of what looked like weird egg people but which was apparently me sitting on the toilet holding a cat while she mixed a cake in the sink.

  I know that I’m really lucky that Ian has both the girls every Wednesday night as well as every other weekend and that Flo still seems happy to go, even though she’s fourteen, but I worry that I don’t make the most of it. I feel as if I should be doing something worthwhile, like writing a novel or taking a ceramics class or doing some exercises on a ball to improve my core strength. With this in mind, I’d planned to spend this evening making a New Year strategic plan for making my life more interesting. Turned out, though, that I was actually quite tired so I watched Pointless in the dark with a gin and tonic and then fell asleep on the sofa for two and a half hours instead. Excellent start.

  Thought I might try jazzing things up with the occasional daily summary? If only to highlight the need for hobbies.

  Thursday 4 January

  Awkward pyjama-based encounters – 1. Rich tea fingers smuggled from the juice table to me by Jess at playgroup – 7.

  I forgot to set my alarm so was woken at 8.45 a.m. by Ian bringing Jess home after dropping Flo off at school. Rather embarrassing opening the door in pyjamas, squinting against the sunlight, as I like Ian to think I spend my child-free Thursday mornings doing Pilates in the garden or drinking coffee and reading the papers on the terrace. I don’t have a terrace, but you know what I mean.

  It still feels weird, months down the line, seeing Ian in the context of the house but not having him live here. In a way, I’m glad that we only lived here for six months together before deciding, once and for all, to separate. I think it would have been much harder if we’d still been in the house in London, where we lived together for years. That place had so many happy memories in it that I’m not sure I could have lived there without him and not been reminded of him everywhere I looked.

  Busy Beavers playgroup this afternoon. I’d been in two minds, but without nursery over Christmas, Jess has definitely been on the twitchy side, plus I was hoping to see Sierra to consolidate the New Year’s Eve party bonding. Post-Christmas playgroup atmosphere decidedly tense – other parents looking more frazzled than usual and three children had to be physically separated after an incident with the rich tea fingers.

  Sierra seemed genuinely pleased to see me, which seems promising for the whole ‘new BFF’ thing. She told me she hasn’t spoken to another grown-up in forty-eight hours, so it could just have been desperation. She introduced me to her son, Fox, who was wearing a Cinderella costume. ‘He’s refused to take it off since Tuesday,’ she told me, ‘even to go to bed.’

  ‘Fox as in a fox?’ I asked. Sierra looked confused. God, I’m such a moron sometimes. Still, she gave me her number and said that maybe we could meet up sometime. I gave her mine. I felt about eight years old. Medicinal glass of leftover Christmas prosecco* after tea for stress.

  *By ‘leftover’ I mean bought in Tesco yesterday.

  Friday 5 January

  Mild panic attacks induced by thoughts about meaning of self – 1. Interesting tableaux created with tiny woodland creatures – 3.

  Ian weekend. Praise the lord. At 4 p.m. closed the door to everybody, poured a glass of yesterday’s prosecco (don’t want to waste it), and settled down to make a sensible plan about goals.

  I don’t know where to start exactly, but I feel that at thirty-seven years old I should be more. I’m not sure more what. Just more together generally? Better at parenting? More Instagrammable? I don’t know. I feel as though I should have a folder in the kitchen of tried-and-tested favourite family recipes that incorporate courgettes in ingenious ways. I feel that my underwear should
match and that I should have a preferred skincare routine. I don’t really understand what a skincare routine involves, but I want to be one of those women who says, ‘Well, I always use blah de blah’ and then other well-groomed women nod admiringly.

  It’s not even that I’m particularly unhappy. I have two lovely daughters, who really could be a lot worse. Jess is three, so mildly tedious, but also funny, and at least she isn’t like the boy at playgroup who wees in the Lego box when he thinks no one is watching. Flo isn’t especially communicative, but she’s fourteen so I think she’s meant to find me ridiculous. She seems to have plenty of friends and generally be quite normal. Between nursery four days a week and playgroup on Thursdays, Jess definitely has a better social life than me, though, so that’s probably something to work on.

  We live in a nice house in a nice town in a nice part of the country. It’s all very nice. We have the beach and the girls are settled and I have a job. I mean sure, when I was a child I didn’t think to myself, ‘when I grow up what I absolutely definitely want to do is to manage volunteers at a medium-sized fossil museum’, but it pays the bills and fits around the girls, so I can’t complain too much.

  Obviously, there is the tiny matter of a husband. I didn’t exactly plan to be in my late thirties and divorced with two children. When Ian and I moved down to Barnmouth at the end of 2016 for our ‘fresh start’, I think we both really knew that it wasn’t going to work, but I guess it would still have been nice to have had that happily-ever-after with family walks on the beach in the evenings rather than a quick, amicable divorce.

  I don’t think it’s that, though. I think it’s more internal. What is it? What’s missing?

  Close examination of life slightly overwhelming so had another glass of prosecco and spent the evening sitting on the floor in Jess’s bedroom, arranging her Sylvanian Families into funny scenes for when she gets home on Sunday evening.