There’s one thing Camilla liked doing and that was talking about herself. She whined on and on and on about her manor house, how she loved having acres and acres of her own land and how convenient it was attached to the house. She droned on about her thoroughbred horses and her successful, booming business that she had built from scratch. I was beginning to get bored now listening to her self-indulgent drivel so I brought her off Planet Self with a bump and announced I was there to buy a saddle.
‘A saddle? A saddle?’
She raised her eyebrows in the direction of the other woman she had been talking to on my arrival.
‘Yes, a saddle,’ I responded politely.
Camilla opened her eyes wide and made no attempt to disguise the fact she had just looked me up and down.
‘Um I don’t think so.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘My saddles are way too expensive for you,’ she announced.
Did she really just say that? The cheeky mare! You know when you’ve just had a Pretty Woman moment, I was expecting Richard Gere to walk in and rescue me at any moment. Big mistake, Camilla Noland – big, big mistake!
I was a believer of karma and in time Camilla Noland would no doubt get her comeuppance.
After listening to the gossip regarding Penelope and failing to purchase a saddle, my inbuilt satnav told me to do a ‘legal U-turn’ and that’s precisely what I did, never to gallop on her land again. I headed straight for a beautiful equestrian shop only a few miles up the road and bought the pony the most beautiful second hand saddle with barely a scratch on it.
Every cloud.
The chicken situation at the Shack had gone clucking mad. I originally acquired five hens and Matt had his three. He spent most of his wages on anti-histamines and never went near the chickens but made sure he ate his fair share of the eggs. The chickens that Matt owned all of a sudden became broody so we sat them on a clutch of eggs and let nature take its course. Three weeks later there were fourteen of the species pecking around. Matt’s pill-popping of anti-histamines doubled in intake. We were overrun with eggs; we ate scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs and egg custard. I was clucked off with eggs. So there was only one thing for it – I made myself a sign which read ‘Fresh Eggs for Sale’. I hammered the sign into place in the middle of the front garden and waited. Matt thought I had OCD – obsessive chicken disorder. I thought it was a great way to make a few quid. Within twenty minutes – no word of a lie – we had the first knock on the door. We ran to the door with our best box of half a dozen only to find it was some bloke making sure we had managed to find God. I was lucky to find my Wellington boots in the morning, never mind bloody God!
Good old ‘Fletch’ – that’s Mr Fletcher-Parker to you and me – became a regular visitor to the Shack on a Friday for his fresh eggs, clutching a pound for his finest half-dozen. He was turning into a lovely neighbour; every time I turned round he was there giving me a little wave most days or shouting a friendly ‘Hello’ from somewhere in the lane. I still hadn’t clapped eyes on our other next door neighbours, the ones Fletch didn’t speak to, but that was all about to change.
The eggs were flying out of the coop right into the hands of the local pensioners in the village. The eggs were fresh and a bargain and the old people couldn’t get enough of them. The dog was launching himself constantly at the door as the doorbell never stopped ringing. I began putting all my eggs in one basket and taking orders before the eggs had even been laid.
Sunday mornings were the busiest time. Unfortunately for the customers I’m not the best morning person, so 9am on a Sunday morning, when I’ve got the hangover from hell and the orange and brown swirly carpets are really not helping, is not the ideal time to visit. Matt’s new pastime was snoring and not only did he snore but he clucked at the end. I could have sworn I had seen every hour of the night and I must have dozed off just as the doorbell rang.
I bolted upright in bed, clucking hell I’d had enough. I opened the door and was about to be very short-tempered when I was taken by surprise; there standing in front of me was a woman holding in her hand what looked like a drowned rat. I did a double-take, how wrong was I? She was holding my cat by the scruff of its neck and it was dripping wet with water. I thought I was still dreaming, but no, she handed me the dripping wet cat and went into an angry dialogue of how my cat was chasing her rabbit around her garden. Stupid as this may sound, I apologised and told her I would have a word with the cat and she would be grounded – I would make her stay in her room all day! She looked at me as though I had just escaped from the local funny farm. I wish I had – I bet you get more sleep there – maybe I’ll check myself in. Then I came to my senses and asked the lady why my cat was dripping wet.
‘I’ve dunked it into a bucket of water,’ she responded angrily before turning around and stomping off back up the path.
‘Who the hell are you?’ I shouted after her.
‘Your next door neighbour,’ was the muffled response I heard whilst she disappeared behind the hedge.
Just great, absolutely great! Not what I needed – a wet cat flung at me in the early hours of a Sunday morning. Looks like Mr Fletcher-Parker was right about those neighbours.
Three
March
March was the month of Little Jonny’s birthday party. Rupert was not fond of his own kids’ birthday parties, as this generally meant one thing – he had to attend. Matt dropped Samuel off at the party (which was football themed) only because Little Jonny had been boasting that a Premier League footballer was attending. He must have been the bowler-hatted office worker Mr Benn in real-life because after he had finished being a footballer, he reappeared as a magician, then he became a DJ before finally emerging as a bouncy castle owner. If the party had continued much longer, no doubt we’d have seen him appear as a spaceman, a Red Indian and a pirate!
Penelope kindly offered to drop Samuel back home at the end of the party and this is when our friendship started to blossom – or so I thought.
On Samuel’s return I invited Penelope in for a brew. I felt sorry for Penelope, she looked sad behind her bright blue eye shadow and her orange foundation. Did she really know anything at all about Rupert’s affairs? It wasn’t a question I was going to launch into during our first cuppa – maybe I’d wait until the second one. So instead I asked her when the baby was due. Penelope started to cry. Not only did she cry, she cried some more. I started to panic as her orange foundation began to streak. It was a good job I was fully stocked up on the two for one Andrex toilet paper from the supermarket. So there I was, sitting in the Shack with a woman I barely knew who was crying hysterically. Maybe the baby wasn’t his? Maybe she had been having affairs like her husband. Her cry turned into a wail and I had to ask her to tone it down as I knew the dog would start howling. I didn’t do crying and I certainly wasn’t about to do howling.
Matt popped his head around the kitchen door, just to check that the International Sex God hadn’t tracked us down despite us being very careful not to leave a forwarding address. The look on his face suggested he thought the big orange guy from the ‘You’ve been Tangoed’ advert had called in for tea but he was relieved to find it was just Penelope.
‘Is she all right?’ he mouthed at me.
‘I haven’t got a bloody clue,’ I mouthed back at him.
He popped straight back out of the kitchen again.
I decided to change the subject fast so I asked how Little Jonny’s birthday party had gone. I thought this was a good move, especially as Imogen had informed me how much she liked talking about him.
‘I’m not pregnant, I’m just fat!’ she shouted.
Have you ever had the feeling when you want to instantly die with shame; to find a spade and bury yourself extremely quickly? This was one of those moments. I genuinely thought she was pregnant. Lucky escape though if you ask me.
What do you do in a situation like this? How do you respond to that? I asked her about a birthday part
y and she informed me she was fat. I knew she was fat because she wasn’t pregnant but I didn’t want to dig my hole any deeper!
‘I’m fat because I eat too much,’ wailed Penelope.
‘No shit, Sherlock!’ I wanted to reply but instead I offered her more Andrex toilet roll and a chocolate digestive biscuit – they are always good in a situation like this.
I was a little narked as she continued to munch her way through the packet of biscuits – their ‘buy one get one free’ offer had expired last week. Just my bloody luck.
‘I need to discover who “Hot Legs” is,’ Penelope cried.
If I hadn’t have been ear-wigging at Mrs Noland’s saddlery door, I would be thinking she was Rod Stewart’s stalker and assigning her a seat on my bus because I could and because she was nuts. It was nearly the kids’ bedtime and even the chickens had clucked off into the coop, so I suggested – and this was the point where I shouldn’t have suggested anything because it mapped out my life for the next twelve months – that maybe she should go home, put her children to bed and come back for a glass of wine. Penelope left the Shack, only to return within the hour.
The bizarre thing was that from the time Penelope had left the Shack to her return my phone had beeped. It was Facebook notifying me of a new friend request – from Penelope Kensington! Not quite sure how I felt about this. In my opinion I did owe Imogen some loyalty but at this moment I really didn’t have any issues with Penelope. I suppose it would have been a bit petty to hold against her the amount of toilet roll she had wasted while she was wailing in the Shack. Almost immediately after I had accepted, my phone beeped again. I had another request, this time from Wendy Barthorpe. I had never spoken to Wendy before or even met her. I postponed accepting that one for the time being although it crossed my mind that this was all very odd.
When Penelope returned, Matt shuffled up the freezing cold corridor clutching his beer and blanket with the dog in tow. He was banished out of the main Shack to the even more freezing cold conservatory while Penelope used up the last of the Andrex and cried some more. I was just hoping the two for one offer was still on.
I thought this Saturday would be an average day in the village but it was about to go down the pan. I felt like I was in a Jeremy Kyle episode. I now had an Oompa-Loompa sitting in my living room. The orange foundation had been washed away leaving a very purple stain-faced Penelope, who after one glass of pinot grigio couldn’t hold her water. More Andrex was needed!
I tried to make the mood light-hearted, after all it couldn’t be that bad – she wasn’t pregnant and she still had all the presents from Little Jonny’s birthday party to sell on eBay. That would keep her busy this week, in between her part-time child-minding duties which allegedly consisted of chain-smoking and sitting on Facebook.
This woman knew nothing about me but I knew more than enough about her. I was an average mother praying for the quiet life in my new country Shack. I had escaped from the clutches of the International Sex God and Mrs High School Musical but now, by request of Penelope, I was being bundled into my own car on a mission to follow Rupert to see if it would lead us to uncover the identity of ‘Hot Legs’. Just what I didn’t need!
Only seconds before, Rupert had notified Penelope by text that he had unexpectedly been called into work and her mother was babysitting the children. Matt was relieved that we were going out as he had started to freeze in the conservatory and had been forced to cuddle the dog for warmth. At least now he could return to the main Shack. At this point Matt was on the verge of hypothermia, his lips were turning blue and his beer was frozen solid. He needed to thaw out.
On a snowy Saturday night in freezing temperatures, when any normal person would be enjoying the warmth of a log fire while drinking a beer, some strange villager was making me play at being Dempsey and Makepeace.
With four children I had a bus for a car, which certainly wasn’t inconspicuous as I spun and slid it all the way down the icy lane. We parked around the corner from Penelope’s house which was a medium-sized detached property on a new-build estate. She made me abandon my car and crouch behind some bushes just in time to witness Rupert leaving their house. My feet were sopping wet; I glanced down to the frosty, snowy ground and realised I was still wearing my monster feet slippers! This wasn’t a good look, a woman crouching behind a bush wearing monster feet slippers, accompanied by an Oompa-Loompa. Not only could we be arrested for lurking in the bushes, but even worse we could be arrested by the fashion police.
‘Nice car,’ I whispered, as Rupert climbed into his pride and joy.
Apart from being a very expensive car, it had its very own personalised number plate. The thought crossed my mind that my first encounter with Imogen had ended with shoplifting and my first encounter with Penelope – well goodness knows where that one was going to end up! Then it hit me, if my guess was correct I knew exactly where he was going. He was off to Annie’s house, Penelope’s best friend, and probably for his usual game of poker.
So Dempsey and Makepeace were on the trail to find ‘Hot Legs’. At this point I have to say my own legs weren’t bloody hot, the car temperature was just not rising. The only thing I could see rising was Penelope’s blood pressure.
It wasn’t a long car journey – Rupert pulled into a street at the top of the village and parked his car on the drive of one of the houses. Penelope remarked that this house wasn’t anything to worry about, as this was Annie’s house. I wasn’t worried; I just wanted warmth with any sort of alcohol thrown in.
Crouched behind a bush for the second time tonight, we watched as Annie opened the door. I was surprised that on such a frosty, snowy night she wasn’t wearing much clothing. Rupert kissed her and entered the house. Her house was definitely more upper class than Penelope’s but again this was probably not the best time to say ‘Nice house.’ Instead I just prayed to God the feeling in my feet would return.
Before I knew it, Penelope was up and running towards the front door, she looked like a cartoon character with steam gushing out of her ears. I found it difficult to keep up in my monster feet slippers; well actually I found it difficult until I slid on the icy path straight past Penelope and hit my head on the front door.
Ouch.
Penelope glared at me and hissed, ‘Get up.’
It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t want to be stalking Rupert on a freezing snowy Saturday night. In fact I didn’t want to be stalking Rupert full bloody stop.
Penelope hammered on the door as I stood behind her. I felt like a reprimanded child, looking down at my feet even though I was actually making sure they were still attached to my legs. It took Annie quite a long time to make her way to the door and open it, no guesses why. I was hoping she would invite us both in for a brew but in reality that just wasn’t going to happen. Finally as she opened the door Penelope slapped her very hard straight across the face. Marvellous, I think I preferred a night of shoplifting with Imogen.
Rupert must have heard the kerfuffle and he tripped and fell down Annie’s stairs while trying to put his pants back on. In all honesty I actually smiled to myself. It was like something out of a comedy sketch.
After spitting out a mouthful of carpet Rupert was the first one to speak.
In fact, I was quite amazed that he didn’t come out with the usual man spiel of ‘It’s not what you think, I can explain.’
Actually after being dragged out on a cold Saturday night I wanted to hear his explanation and wondered how he intended to dig himself out of this hole. After all, he was showing his ace and a pair to Penelope’s best friend.
But no, his first question was directed at me.
‘Who the hell are you?’
This question took Penelope by surprise. She looked at me waiting for an answer.
‘Who the hell am I? Who the hell am I? Me? I am just some woman, who has moved from up north for a quiet country life. But no – I’ve been dragged out stalking men and now I’m on the trail to find “Hot Legs” and my favourite s
lippers are wrecked.’
At this point we all looked down at Annie’s legs – yep I can confirm Rupert was right, Annie did have hot legs but maybe this wasn’t the best time to side with Rupert! Penelope dragged Rupert to the car by his ear and threw him onto the back seat while Annie closed the door behind us. The atmosphere in the car was a little frosty to say the least, just like my bloody feet. I was the first to break the icy silence by suggesting maybe Rupert should drive his own car home.
‘No chance,’ was Penelope’s reply. Annie’s husband was due back in the morning and Penelope wanted Annie to explain to him why Rupert’s car was there. I wasn’t aware she had a husband. I glanced at Rupert’s personalised number plate which read 5TUD 1. I smiled to myself maybe, just maybe, he should think about changing it to BA5 TARD!
I drove them back to their house and opened the car door to let them out before driving home. It certainly wasn’t Bonfire Night but the amount of fireworks that were going to explode in their house tonight was unimaginable. Unfortunately for Rupert it was a different type of bang than he was originally expecting. I was so glad I wasn’t there.
I arrived back at the Shack to find Matt completely thawed out, still cuddled up to the dog, both fast asleep with Match of the Day playing out from the television. I left them both where they were and climbed into bed in the hope I would feel my feet by morning and there would be no need for any sort of amputation.
In the morning I was woken by the sound of Samuel screaming, ‘Mum! Mum! I’m on the loo and I’ve run out of toilet paper.’
Great, my stocks had completely diminished as a result of Penelope’s crying. For a moment I just lay there thinking. It appeared I was settling in well to village life, everyone I had met so far was a complete and utter lunatic and could fill an asylum all by themselves. The only positive thing to come out of last night was that I didn’t have a hangover; after all I hadn’t had much of an opportunity to get drunk.
A Year in the Life of a Playground Mother: A laugh-out-loud funny novel about life at the School Gates (A School Gates Comedy Book 1) Page 8
