How to be The World’s Worse Mum…Step 3 Revision (Examination Conditions).

It was so quiet and peaceful in the house.

The Teenager had set the table ready for the science test paper he was going to work through.

I had decided to help him; and joined him at the table with my lap top. If there were any tricky questions then a quick dash to Wikipedia and all would be revealed.

The first questions went well: ‘Why was the ragwort growing taller than the grass?’ Within moments I was clicking through internet sites concerned with ragwort. It was fascinating stuff.

‘Hey, it says here that a horse would have to eat several stones in weight of ragwort in order to kill it.’ I happily inform the teenager. ‘There is even a reference here to a horse eating around a quarter of its body weight and surviving, that’s amazing.’

There’s a disinterested grunt from The Teenager. He’s finished answering questions on ragwort and is now writing about cinnabar moths. Before I can catch up with him he is puzzling over why oxygen damages the filament in a light bulb. A deft Wiki click and all is revealed.

That’s when I notice the smell.

It’s ammonia.

It comes in waves.

‘I should have cleaned out the hamster cage,’ I say.

The Teenager looks up from his work,
‘Ugh,’ he says. ‘I can smell it too.’

I don’t want odour of hamster to put The Teenager off his studies so I move the cage into the nearby kitchen and begin to clean it. Of course there were the inevitable crashing, scrubbing, opening and closing cupboards sounds; and the sound of an ocean of water racing through the sink.

I opened the back door, and walked with the hamster litter to the compost bin.

The compost bin is shaped like a green Dalek in the garden and is in The Teenager’s line of sight should he happen to look out of the window. The lid is always tricky to open. I wrestle with it and deposit the litter then wave to The Teenager who has enjoyed the entertainment.

Once back inside I begin to twist off the top of the hamster’s ‘attic bedroom’; I look like a burglar trying to crack a reluctant safe. The Teenager is watching mesmerised as I fail to sense the correct opening position and continue winding and winding the top plastic lid round and round.

Once it is finally opened the hamster bedding tumbles like a petals falling from a flower; though there is no corresponding sweet smell.

‘Ugh,’ says The Teenager then, ‘Ah,’ as the sleepy hamster, his ears still folded against his head is woken. The Teenager watches as the creature is placed on the fresh sawdust floor of its cage.
I industrially clean and replace the ‘attic’.

There is something fascinating about a hamster trying to climb up a transparent tube. It’s the scrabbling of tiny feet, the wind-milling of little legs; and the peristalsis of the undulating small body as it strives to summit its Everest. The Teenager is watching each minute detail with rapt attention.

I never should have bought the dwarf hamsters. We saw them in the shop their tiny noses peeking out of the bedding and our hearts were lost.

I pick up their cage and whisk it away into the kitchen.

Dwarf hamsters are not easy to catch. I grab the first and hold it in my hand, and show it to The Teenager who looks up from his science paper, ‘Ah, he exclaims thrilled. It’s the soft down on the white under belly, the twinkling eyes and the delicate feet that captivates attention. The Teenager strokes the hamster gently before I place it in the other freshly cleaned cage.
Moments later I’ve caught the second, which now peeps coquettishly over my thumb. I show it to The Teenager. ‘Ah,’ he says again.

The hamsters do not get on well.

When I return from fighting the green Dalek compost bin, I discover that Hammy has slipped down his tube and is now confronting his tiny cousins. The dwarf hamsters are now trying to find an escape route. They are climbing the bars and gnawing noisily at them whilst their larger hamster cousin lumbers through the sawdust in a threatening manner towards them.
One of the dwarf hamsters leaps up onto the wheel that I’d forgotten to crease. It creaks with a loud painful cranking sound, as the tiny creature tries to work off a phenomenal amount of adrenaline.

‘It’s noisy isn’t it,’ observes The Teenage. He is watching the hamster drama, unable to turn the next page of his test paper.

I rush to finish cleaning the second cage and to transfer the tiny hamsters back to their luxury home. The Teenager watches thoughtfully every second of the process as if his mind is a blank.
‘You don’t mind if I sweep the carpet do you?’ I ask. There is a confetti of hamster litter across the floor.

‘No,’ says The Teenager. ‘Go ahead.’

I discover that there are papers over the top of the vacuum cleaner which I’ll have to move to get to it. I take the papers outside to the bottom of the garden. Here wait the sawn tree trunks from the tree that fell in the last storm. They’ve already been arranged in a high pyramid for their funeral pyre. I set the fire and it begins to blaze gloriously.

The fire is on a direct line of sight with The Teenager who is sitting enthralled staring out of the window. He is now watching with glazed eyes an amazing pyrotechnic display of sparks. There are hypnotising curling flames that are leaping and soaring ten feet into the sky.

I wave at him, and he waves back.

When I get back into the house I’m pleased to see that he is using the laptop as a learning support. Then I discover that he is watching a video from Youtube: the Simpson’s version of ‘The Shining’. He switches it off and goes back to his science paper; as I begin to noisily vacuum up the room, jabbing at his bare feet under the table with the cleaner.

I finally put the cleaner away and go to give The Teenager more ‘support’.
He tells me he’s finished the paper and is going to his room.
The downstairs room is now swept and quiet.
The laptop’s screen is a blank.
The hamsters are curled asleep in fresh clean bedding.
The fire outside has fallen into silent ash.

I make a cup of tea; delighted to have been able to create for The Teenager the perfect test conditions!

How to be the World’s worse Mum: Step 2 The Picnic.

We were lost.

My ‘short cut’ had somehow woven a tangled trail deeper into the forest. The path that had once been broad and wide had now dwindled to an almost indecipherable track; discernable only by dead leaves that were marginally more flattened than their nearby cousins.

‘It’s this way,’ I announced brightly with brittle confidence.

‘Ow!’ The teenager protests.

The branches that I’ve just ducked under have swiped him across the face.
We are jumping across muddy streams and tripping over tree roots.

The trail into the forest had been so easy.

True: we had had to park in the car park that was a long way from our chosen destination as the other had been full; and this had only added an extra mile to our walk but it would be worth it.

We were going to have a picnic.

We had seen other picnickers the previous day.

‘They can’t be doing that!’ We had exclaimed aghast, as in the busy car park we saw a couple spreading out their picnic blanket. Around them cars sent up dust clouds, children played ball, and dogs freshly released from hot cars looked for a spot to relieve themselves.

We had been horrified.

‘That’s no place for a picnic,’ we had chorused.

We had become picnic snobs.

As we walked along our easy trail we saw other picnickers.

‘No,’ we exclaimed in horror as a family group who had been walking towards us decided to step off the path and straggle a ditch sitting on the stumps of the newly felled trees. All around them was the devastation of newly felled trees; the smell of resin like the smell of blood from a murder scene.

‘How can they sit in a ditch?’ We exclaimed in disgust once we were out of earshot. ‘And there of all places!’

We knew the perfect place. It was just a little further on. We hoped that no one else had discovered it.

We had been there the previous day enjoying the peace and solitude when a family had strolled up invading our privacy.

‘Have a sandwich,’ the man had said to a small child who was watching us with fascination.

‘How could they?’ I had later seethed. ‘How could they decide to have a picnic right next to us when there was the rest of the open forest to choose?’

I had become suddenly aware of the art of picnic etiquette.

The next day, a mile or so later, we had returned with our very own picnic.

Not for us a picnic in a noisy car park, or in a forest ditch, or right next to somebody else. Okay, so our ideal spot involved a little climbing and a head for heights but it was the perfect spot for a picnic.

It took courage. The final flip and swing of the body over the two metre gap had us both trembling but we did it. We had attained the seat at the top of the tower and we were going to have a picnic. We had views over what were once long open rides, where the medieval kings of England had once hunted. We could imagine the monarch, his cloak flapping in the wind, as he chased his quarry through the trees.

We were surrounded by beautiful trees and shaded from the sun. We had delicious food and our picnic snobbery now knew no bounds. We were like Nazis in our watch tower lording it over our domain, daring any to approach and encroach on our picnic.

No one came close

No one dared.

We played a long game of chess, trying to postpone as long as possible the frightening demands of the descent back to earth.

All was quiet and peaceful.

The forest has many ghosts but in the stillness we did not hear the ghostly sound of the invisible coach and horses which are reputed to career through the trees.

Eventually, we did clamber back down and began to follow my ‘short cut’ to find the car park again. The thin trail was one that the ghost of a monk could have walked. He certainly had left no footprints if he’d passed that way earlier in the day.

We were lost; and we startled the wildlife with our stumbling presence. A young buck deer with proud antlers stood in a clearing and watched us with astonishment. Peacock butterflies warmed their wings on cut logs as we finally regained the trail.

True: there was now a horse cantering towards us out of control, but we had enjoyed the perfect picnic; the way it should be done.

Everything Has to Go...

‘Everything has to go,’ I was told.

‘She’s going to put brand new furniture all the way throughout the school.’

It sounded good.

This was the Chinese whisper I had on the last day of the spring term. Stickers were placed on all the old tables and chairs. Contents of moveable cupboards and shelves were entombed in large green boxes. It was exhausting, but it was done.

‘I’m not,’ said Katie the Wise. ‘We don’t know what we are going to get in their place,’ she said as she looked at my mountain of green boxes arranged like the Himalayas in the middle of my classroom.

‘We are all getting new furniture,’ I was reassured by my classroom assistant moments later. ‘That’s what I was told.’

I took heart from my classroom assistant’s words, after all she was one of the governors in the school, so she should know; and stuck the ‘Remove’ labels onto my teacher’s desk and numerous other shelving units.

Niggles like worms have since wriggled through my head: I’ve been unable to sleep.

Katie the Wise’s words replayed in the small hours. I began to have second thoughts about two of the shelving units I’d put ‘Remove’ labels on. I would rescue them!

Tuesday was the day for the grand furniture swap.

I decided I would get there early and rip the labels off two units that I’d decided to save. However, a whole week of sleepless nights had taken its toll and I was late waking up and getting to school.

The blue furniture removal vans were parked outside the school. The head teacher and the caretaker were talking to one of the removal men. I side stepped them and rushed down to my classroom.

Everything had gone.

My heart sank; though ever the optimist I set to to help. The floor needed hoovering before the brand new furniture arrived. I swept my classroom, Katie the Wise’s classroom and Chris’ classroom.

The men brought a tall shelf unit into the room followed by a larger shelf unit. There were not new. They were dirty and covered in work that had been done by former pupils in whose presence they had once stood. I set to and began to clean them up, extracting staples and backing paper, Velcro strips, broken staples and resistant sellotape. They were bulky and would not fit neatly under the windows as the other shelves had done.

The head appeared and said that she was not happy with the units that she’s been sent to replace our drawer units. They were apparently worse than what we were sending them; so she had decided to send them all back; together with our original ones.

‘We’ll have to order new ones,’ she said. ‘The teachers can order on Monday’s training day. Still these are better aren’t they,’ she said looking at a shelving unit that was in Chris’ room. Apparently, the last child to see the unit had gone mad with a green ink stamp. ‘That will wash off won’t it,’ she said to the caretaker.

I had battled with a similar stamp from the demon green bookcase stamper earlier and knew that it would not.

‘Are the shelves coming later?’ I asked innocently.

‘No they are here,’ she reached down to the bottom of the unit and lifted up one of the shelves. ‘It will go just here,’ she said and placed it on the supports near the top of the unit. It wobbled dangerously. ‘Oh, is one of the supports missing?’ She asked.

The caretaker nodded.

‘Well, you can easily fix that,’ she said to the caretaker. ‘Right I’m off now. The tables and chairs are coming in the next load,’ she said, walking past all the computers that were in the ‘wet area’, past the chaos in every classroom, past the electrician who was sorting out the new computer suite, past the chairs and old furniture that were now stacked in the yard, past the caretaker’s exhausted face; and home she went.

There were some new teacher’s desks in the hall. I asked about them conscious of the empty space in my room. To my horror I discovered that they were not for the teachers but for the office. The teachers were not going to get new desks. It seems that nobody else had stuck a ‘Remove’ sticker on their desk. I began to panic.

Katie the wise had been right.

Luckily, I found my old desk still in the yard, and grabbing a trolley I managed to wheel it back towards the school; heaving it over the school’s Victorian steps. Of my original shelving units there was no sign. However, there were two other shelving units that I could rescue.

As fast as the men were removing furniture from the school I, like a manic squirrel, was struggling to carry things back in, much to their annoyance.

All that I now needed were tables and chairs for the children.

The lorry returned and was steadily unloaded.

The men like strange blue-backed beetles crawled through the school shedding their carapace of ‘new’ hideous blue tables in different classrooms. ‘Hideous Blues’ came in various sizes enough to replenish all but one classroom: mine.

The removal man was surly. ‘What are you going to do?’ He demanded as if I was in charge of the whole operation.

The caretaker later told me that she had warned the head that the order was insufficient, and that a whole classroom would be short of tables and chairs. The removal man had apparently told her the same thing.

I stared at them guppy style, opening and closing my mouth like a fish gasping for air. I had no words.

Katie the wise had been right.

The caretaker rang the Head who simply replied, ‘Salvage some.’

Outside the better tables had already gone. Only small tables remained.

‘So which chairs do you want?’ demanded the exasperated removal man as I wondered if I could squeeze a seven year old under a table intended for someone in reception.

‘Which chairs do you want?’ he insisted impatiently, as if I was an indecisive shopper. ‘Red tipped or brown?’

‘Red tipped’ turned out to be the grey ones that had been removed earlier from my room. I settled for the brown; and the very disgruntled men began to wheel thirty chairs back into the school.

Then I was again searching for tables to rescue.

Luckily, the old computer suites’ tables were still in the school. They were big and bulky and really too high for Year Three; but the brown chairs would give the children some hope of occasionally reaching the tops of their desks.

Hobson’s choice!

We heaved these leviathans into the room where they stood lumpy and rectangular in shape.

Gone is any possibility of arranging imaginative geometrical furniture patterns.

They were filthy, and I wiped them down.

The furniture men had gone.

I unpacked as much as I could from the green boxes. Stacked the six remaining boxes that were now impossible to unpack into a corner and surveyed my classroom’s new look. I’d been at school for six and a half hours, had had no lunch, and was exhausted and every muscle was aching. The removal man’s last searing comments about, ‘A lack of organisation,’ were still ringing through my ears.

Still, ever the optimist, as I looked at my classroom I had to look on the bright side.
We had definitely not won in the game of musical chairs; but now the room would seat the offspring of giants quite comfortably!