Whilst I trekked over to Leicestershire for the Beaters Day last Saturday Lottie was representing her school at a dressage competition on the outskirts of Cambridge. No end of excitement in the Sandison household these days. I gather Sophie thought she had done a pretty respectable test so they decided to stay to the end to find out where she’d come even though the events invariably last an eternity. Eventually though the tannoy announced that all the scores were on the board and Lottie went to look. She returned grumpily. “It’s so boring Mumma. We always stay for the results and it’s never worth it. I came 15th.” she said. They resumed packing the final bits and pieces into the trailer and were just about to head disgruntledly home when another school parent came running up to them, all excited, and congratulated Lottie. What Lottie had read against her name as 15th was actually 1st! What a twerp. So, she is the County Schools Champion for Cambridgeshire. Go her. Sophie was less delighted. “Humph”, her text to me read as I thrashed my way through the undergrowth of a wood trying to rouse the odd pheasant, “now I have to take her to sodding Bicester for the National Championships”.
With perfect child status very much underpinned Lottie announced over dinner the other night “I think I won’t bother going to school tomorrow”. She is indeed diligence personified so though we might have feigned indifference if it had been Bob, the sense of surprise round the table at this display of chutzpah, was palpable. “My double English session”, she continued, “which I particularly look forward to on Wednesday, has been replaced with two sessions of s*x education followed by netball practice. So what’s the point of going in really?”
Changing the subject can I have a little moan please? I parked my car in the KFC car park in Haverhill last weekend. I had been dragged out on a cold, damp, Sunday evening to watch La La Land. As if that wasn’t dull enough I’ve just received a whopping Penalty Charge Notice for which price I could have bought 3 ten piece Wicked Variety Buckets, a Zinger Salad and a Twister and still have had enough change to have bought a ticket in the main car park twenty yards further along the road. What a total poo.
Talking of which I called into various shops in the course of my walk across the City to the station on Burns Night earlier this week. I was in search of haggis you won’t be surprised to hear. As rare as they are running free with their peculiar leg configuration round the steeply sloping heather moors of Scotland they are even more elusive down south. I scoured M&S, Sainsbury and Waitrose fruitlessly, and as I got to Old Broad Street, the Tesco Express store there represented the last chance saloon. To my great surprise, not least because she didn’t seem to have a great command of the English, the shop assistant nodded knowingly when I articulated, a little more carefully on the second time of asking, the word HAGGIS and gestured me to follow her.
What joyous anticipation I felt, with my fingers crossed that it would be Macsween’s, as we meandered through the shop around the various aisles. Lottie and I, I mused, would be able properly to commemorate Scotland’s National Poet. I might even allow myself a small malt. In addition to which, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful, Hen, who’s home at the moment, had told me she was cooking roasted vegetables with curried chickpeas for supper which wasn’t really going to float my boat truth be told, Burns Night or not. As well as you know me, I don’t believe you can come close to picturing the disappointment on my face when we turned into the toiletries section and the girl stooped down and triumphantly handed me a pack of disposable nappies.
P.S. If it’s any consolation I didn’t get it immediately either….
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