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Thursday 14 April 2011

Sensible girl

Determined not to follow in her mother's footsteps, Abi Jane is getting acquainted with the driving seat nice and early.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

A Slice in the Life of The Rev's Wife

Mothering Sunday, 7.40am.  I am standing in a cloud of icing sugar, trying to create buttercream icing for 10:30 club.  This is more than usually difficult since I don't have any butter, having only decided to ice cakes for the children's mums the night before, when I finally abandoned all the complicated origami flowers I found on the internet.  I am hoping that Tesco Olive Spread will do the job.
Abigail is sitting at the kitchen table consuming Weetos.  She has them in her hair, up her sleeves and stuck to her lap.  Thankfully she is still wearing her pyjamas.  I have icing sugar in my hair, down my front and streaked across one eye.  I am not wearing my pyjamas.  I can hear the Rev moving about upstairs.  He probably still is wearing his pyjamas, although he has an 8:30 service to get to, because he has the astonishing ability to go from bed to presentable in under three seconds and he flaunts it mercilessly.
I taste the OliveSpreadCream icing.  It tastes of olive oil.  I add more icing sugar, humming the song I've just written and am now trying to learn in time to sing it with the 10:30 club kids.  I mentally run through the props and items I need to take to church with me: apart from coloured icing pens and sprinkles, I need one floppy fabric doll, two metres of shiny blue fabric, an old stained t-shirt of The Rev's, a spangly white blouse of mine and a basket.  Can you guess the Bible story?!
I taste the icing, which is now horrendously sweet with traces of olive oil.  I have a brainwave and fetch vanilla flavouring.  Abigail sticks her hand in her cereal bowl and spills sticky chocolate milk all over the table.  The Rev appears in the doorway buttoning his shirt and asking whether I've seen a dog collar.  I tell him to try the nursery (Abigail likes to remove his dog collars and chew the ends of them.)
I taste the icing.  It tastes absolutely foul, of very sweet vanilla flavoured olive oil, but I have a suspicion that the children will pile the cakes so high with sprinkles and sweets that nobody will notice; I give up and pack the bowl into a bag with the icing.  It's time to de-Weeto the baby, dress her in something decent, remove as much sugar as I can from my hair, clothes and face, collect together my props, remember all the silly animal actions in my song and go to church.
What better way to celebrate Mothering Sunday?