LESSER-SPOTTED SIGHTINGS PART I

Continuing with my birdwatching amongst the Coffee Shop Regulars.......*

*I overhear the conversations because the tables are so close. I'm not spying.... honestly:

A few of the visitors to the coffee shores are more seasonal and not 'regular' enough to be regulars – but regular enough to be noticed.

Here are some of the lesser-spotted sightings.

NAME: THE BORROWERS SPECIES: Middle-aged and middle-class

SIGHTING: Regular weekends                       CALL: A latte

PLUMAGE: Smart Casual Weekend wear, comfortable shoes

As the coffee shop is on the 1^st floor of a book store, it can give the appearance of the reading rooms in the local library. The shop displays its wares around the sides of the tables for people to peruse whilst supping and I have actually heard one woman complain that a particular book had been moved (perhaps horrors above horrors, even sold!) when she was only half-way through reading it – turns out she had been working her way through several pages every time she came in for coffee for the past three weeks and was most miffed when it had been replaced by Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History in Time' (sorry Mr Hawking, I only got to page 4, but that's another story). It is also quite tempting for people to treat the place as more of a reference library than a money-making operation and it is not unusual for someone to take notes from the stock while they are having a latte, then just leave the book the windowsill along with the empty cup.

Take for instance, the Cookery Man. He comes up the stairs, spectacles on top of his head and laden with several over-sized cook books (food section is on the ground floor). Then he sits and copies out the recipes into an ever-bulging folder.   I haven't noticed any specific food genre – he seems to be drawn more to the actual size of the book – and the bigger the better.  Italian, Tapas or Thai, Jamie, Nigel or Prue, I just can't see any pattern to his selections. Also, he is always alone; I don't know why this should be significant - it probably isn't.  Maybe he holds a lot of dinner parties, or maybe he is tormenting his ex-wife who was always dieting, by anonymously posting recipes of really tasty dishes through her letterbox late at night....

NAME: THE YUMMIES       SPECIES: Female

SIGHTING: School holidays                         CALL: A latte and a croissant for the child

PLUMAGE: Head to foot Boden, Chelsea Tractor Buggy, Accessorised by a small child/baby

Each Yummy is usually accompanied by an ignored toddler who will inevitably stand right next to your chair and stare at you with wide open eyes. You inevitably give an awkward smile back – because anything more than a weak simper may result in the blessed thing sitting down next to you and engaging you in conversation for the next 20 minutes (much to your annoyance and the mother's delight). Within the bowels of the adjoining pram lies the complimentary baby which, by the sound of it's lungs, cannot be more than a few weeks old.  This tiny scrap cannot walk, talk, feed or fend for itself, but can produce the kind of sonic boom that will demolish a 12 story block of flats just by sound alone and indeed, quickly empties most of the tables surrounding it. The mother frantically scrambles through a huge, quilted Mary Poppins bag to find a baby bottle and sort out some carrot sticks for the child, who is still standing 10 inches away from your face – don't make eye contact, don't meet it's gaze, that's all they need, just the tiniest crack and the next thing you know your quiet coffee turns into unpaid child-minding and it'll be covering your fruit 'n' oat fingers in snot before you can say Nanny McPhee.

Of course, all the children get bored within 15 minutes, but the Yummies are determined to preserve a little bit of their pre-stretch mark years and 'catch up with the girls'. They are not going to be deterred by a few bored kids, oh no - they have come prepared: out comes the colouring pencils and Bob's yer uncle, Fanny's yer aunt, you've ended up in some ad hoc Mother & Toddlers-R-Us-With-Coffee-and-a-carrot-stick-Group. “Why don't you draw mummy a lovely picture while she talks to Auntie Philomena?” is the constant refrain. (NB: I've noticed most kids actually dislike colouring, especially in public places and especially when they are expected to do it for longer than 3 minutes). Consequently, very few pictures are produced, still, the Yummies are made of stronger stuff and continue with other activities such as: giving the car keys to the smallest ones as substitute rattles and: setting up “wheels on the bus” with the now empty chairs that are now surrounding them, thanks to mighty lungs in the 4x4 buggy.

Needless to say, none of it works; the children simply don't want to sit indoors at a table and watch their mums talk for an hour and a half; they crave rapid-fire activity.... and most of all, attention. Nine times out of a dozen, the Yummies end up giving the child their iPhone to play with while they chat amongst themselves about the latest hand/eye co-ordination achievements of little Fergus, Bertie, Ffion and Thomasina. And so, in a wonderful sense of missed irony, a communication device replaces communication.

Engage with your child? There's an App for that...

SCHOOL-GATE STYLE TIPS REVEALED!!

This week heralded the first day back at school after the six week summer holiday break.  My youngest daughter, YumYum is 9 years old and has finally left the safety of her fluffy, warm primary school nest and flown out into the big wide world that is the middle school (we still have three tiers here in West Suffolk: Primary School until the age of 9; Middle school until the age of 13 and then it's off to High School with you).

 The bell goes in three minutes...
10-4  Did you remember your PE kit?

Primary school days start at 9.05am. Which meant that YumYum did not roll out of bed until 8.15am, get dressed until 8.45am and then we would bomb it down the A43 at 8.58am to do a handbrake turn into the school road,with me chucking her out of the car door into the grounds of the school, Starsky & Hutch style (original series).

Middle school however, starts at 8.30am!! I'll repeat that, because it takes some believing: 8 flipping 30! IN THE MORNING!! Now, this is a big shock to the system – for the both of us. We don't “do” mornings. In fact, I only “do” about an hour between 10 and 11am, but that's by-the-by. Anyway, we managed to miss the school bus on the first day (start as you mean to go on I suppose) which meant I ended up taking YumYum into the school gates myself.

Of course, I have heard a lot about school gate etiquette:  the yummy mummies; the clothes, the make-up, the behaviour - and being an “older” mother myself (ahem) I suppose could I loosely come under that heading.

So here is what I wore for my first day at middle school gates. From the top:

Hair: Loose chignon;

Face: Natural style eye make-up. Lip gloss;

Top: Floaty, handkerchief style with cropped cardigan;

Bottom: Palazzo pants;

Feet: Flat pumps;

This isn't me btw

Accessories: Large scarf. Large sunglasses. Large Handbag. Large amount of perfume.

Pretty neat huh? Look at me everybody: it's Sadie Frost meets Zsa Zsa Gabor. Fantastic.

Now, let's look at what is really going on here.

Hair: Didn't have time to have a shower and wash it (ok, I own up - I couldn't be bothered). Resulting Barnet* has had a ton of Batiste dry shampoo sprayed into it so I can do nothing but hurriedly pin it up with a hairslide in the hope it stays put - at least until I get back into the car.

Face: Natural concealer to hide the bags and black circles under my eyes which are the inevitable result of too many late nights and broken sleep. Lip gloss is actually just a Chapstick, because lips are dehydrated through too much vino the night before (and probably another cause of the eye-bags/black circles and greasy hair if I'm honest).

Curse you Waitrose and your
oh so tasty iced buns

Top: Floaty to hide the Quatermass Experiment that is my waistline (I blame the menopause - the Waitrose iced buns have nothing to do with it I tell you). The cropped cardigan is ideal for hiding the chicken/bingo wings, the likes of which can only be found elsewhere on a plate at Nandos.

Bottom: Palazzo pants have a threefold benefit. 1. Elasticated waist (see Quatermass Experiment above). 2. Covers up abnormally large thighs (again, see Quatermass above) 3. Covers up legs which are in dire need of waxing: oh, they're not quite at the Wayne Rooney hair transplant stage you understand, more of a gentle bees knees stage.... if you know what I mean.

Crap! I'm still wearing my Louboutins!

Feet: Flat pumps because toenails need repainting - plus I need to drive like the devil to get to the school gates before the bell goes and heels are a handicap....

ask Lewis Hamilton.

Accessories: Large scarf because it's flaming cold that time of the morning and it also hides a well-developed turkey neck (see also Nandos above);

Large sunglasses because it's ridiculous o'clock in the morning and I haven't had any coffee to wake me up, so my eyes make me look like a mole caught in a spotlight (a black furry creature that is, not the skin type of mole). Not to mention that I managed to get some of the natural make-up concealer into my eye before we left and now it won't stop watering.;

Large handbag because I need to carry around:  1. a large supply of painkillers; 

2. a fold-up walking stick; 

3. a book for reading in the coffee shop (which immediately follows school gate appearance) 

4. a Waitrose iced bun to eat later;

5. a half-scrawled list telling me what I am meant to be doing after coffee shop and iced bun;

Large amount of perfume mainly to disguise the disgusting lack of shower (see above).

So you see, being a school gate yummy mummy is not all it's cracked up to be. You have to think on your feet (or flat pumps in my case) and because behind every “natural” flair, there is a natural disaster.....

Good morning teacher
Yes, you can "have a quick word" 

*For non-UK viewers: Barnet is cockney slang for Barnet Fair = hair.