Summer's O-V-A-H

The school holidays are O-V-A-H, as in over. To be honest, I was over them two hours after they started and we had nothing to look forward to but eight weeks of predicted rain, an imminent new baby, and grumpy, terribly bored children and no prospect of a summer holiday – bar an overnight stay in Altnagelvin Hospital’s maternity hotel and spa – looming on the horizon.
The kids have been looking forward to heading back to the classroom much in the same way as people look forward to sticking forks in their eyes. For me the end of the school holidays heralds a return to normality, a return to nice, comforting routine, a return to having half as many kids making half as many demands for a precious few hours. I also love, of course, that my kids can return to be being wonderfully edumacated once more. I love that they are getting a chance to learn to do stuff gooder – like fighting over wrestling cards and sticking dangerously sharpened pencils into their classmate’s legs.
The boys often have to write a summer diary for their teachers, detailing what they did, where they went, who was there, how darn exciting it all was. All with pictures and postcards to illustrate.
Other kids in the class will no doubt have their pages filled with fantastic stories of adventurous holidays in the sun, pictures of themselves with Mickey Mouse, postcards from far away places. My boys will be able to fill an A4 page with their adventures. I dare say it’ll go something like this…
‘We stayed in the house watching miserably from the living room window while the rain lashed the pavement. The most exciting place we visited was Sainsbury’s on a Saturday and it was incredibly, incredibly boring. It rained there too. The Playstation was our only salvation. Our mother got very fat and very grumpy as the holidays progressed. The blasted woman went to hospital and came home with a very noisy little person who kept us awake all night, adding (if humanly possible) to our misery. We had a rubbish summer, and if we are honest with ourselves, we are glad it’s all over.’
Due to the fact that I have just had a baby my brain is unable to function fully. I’m not firing on all cylinders so to speak. Sleep deprivation and pure hope had led me into the false belief that I had enough school uniforms to see us into Christmas at least. These uniforms are washed, ironed and folded neatly in the lad’s wardrobes. It never thought to me that the boys might have grown over the summer. You see I thought, like plants, kids needed actual sunshine to grow and that our horrendous Irish summers might stunt their growth thus eliminating my need to go and spend a fortune on grey school trousers they’ll put the knees out of within a week.
Alas, no, my theory on the sunshine links to stunted growth were drastically wrong and
those boys have shot up despite the weather. The oldest boy has outgrown his and needs new ones, the middle boy has outgrown his, but not grown enough to fit the oldest boys hand-me-downs. So it’s a new kit all round.
Looking for grey school trousers two days before school actually starts is much akin to seeking out the lost secrets of the Knights Templar – as in impossible. All those ‘Super-organised mammies’ must have bought up all supplies in July making the rest of us ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ mammies look really, really bad.
Yeah, thanks for that.
My boys will be sporting a new range of school wear this season. I’ll be calling my creation the ‘uber-improvised uniform’. The middle child (he whose hand me down trousers are too long) will have specially designed frayed hems. I will achieve this look by taking a pair of nearly blunt scissors and walloping off about 4cms from the legs.
My oldest boy will be sporting a fashion which has been prevalent on the Paris catwalks this season. His hems will be ‘designer extended’. To achieve this, slightly trickier look, I will be roughly sewing on the material I removed from the middle boy’s trousers to his. Bob’s your uncle, the job’s a good’un.
You mark my words; this new trend will certainly take off. Come October you’ll all be doing it.