Is that a choir of angels I hear? Does the world somehow seem a brighter place? How is it that I can see colours more vibrantly, that music sounds somehow sweeter? Because there’s only one more week left until the glorious school term starts, that’s why.
There were days we thought we would never make it this far. There were many dark, dark times. Many days we teetered on the brink of insanity as dozens of children, only a fraction of whom I could claim as my offspring, rampaged through my house and garden, ate everything in our cupboards like a pack of ravenous piranha and sent the neighbours running, screaming for the ASBO hotline number due to excessive noise levels.
We have spent entire days praying. Praying that the Lord would end our suffering. But we obviously weren’t praying hard enough for he kept sending the apocalyptic rain and the hoards of neighbours noisy kids to our door. We must have done something terribly wrong in a previous life to deserve this type of torture, otherwise why would he have sent a child with the ear-drum piercing Barbara Windsor-style laugh to our door this summer or the one who could eat seven packets of crisps in a row and then ask if we had any available biscuits?
As usual I have left the purchasing of school uniforms to the last minute. I’ve discovered over the years the purchasing of school uniforms is a bit like a safari. Lionesses prowl around the shops for weeks beforehand on the hunt, sniffing out the best bargains, waiting for the special offers to raise their heads. Once they have their prey in their sights they slink around and pounce on the best deals for their cubs, biting and scratching other mother’s eyes out if they put their paws on the last pair of good school shoes.
Last year I figured that their old uniforms would suffice, that lack of sunshine and our wet Irish summers would have stunted their growth sufficiently that I wouldn’t need to purchase new ones. Three days before school started I found myself trawling through the rejects that the good Mums, the ones who buy their school uniforms in May, had discarded. And much like the African safari the uniform section of many stores was like the carcass of some savaged wildebeest – just the bare bones and the bits that were chewed and spit out left, like the odd shoes and trousers that won’t stay up for love or money.
And the hunt for those PE slippers, the pumps that the school insist in making the kids wear so as not to ruin their wooden floors, gets me every year. When do the good mothers purchase these elusive items, in January? That’s just plain sneaky. There are never any left when I seek them in the summer. I’ve more chance of discovering the lost treasures of the Knights Templar. Quite frankly I’d rather pay to have the PE hall floor completely replaced every year than to have to search for those blasted black pumps.
But at least now we know that there is light at the end of what has been a very, very long and torturous tunnel. We’re now talking days until normal service resumes and we can offload our offspring onto the professionals and have our days and our routines returned to us.
If you’re looking for us next week you will find us camped outside their school, as has become tradition. Those teachers have had a long, stress less holiday season. I wouldn’t want to deprive them of a single second of my kid’s colourful company.
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