Maternity ring

This morning my two darling munchkins started big school! Hurrah!!!

These holidays run on for far too long if you ask me. The poppets needed a break, but my word, did it have to go on for months on end? Half of Dulwich is back on Prozac.

By 8.30 A.M. the locality was at a complete standstill, there are nine independent schools within a one and a half mile radius of the cross roads, and so once again we had grid lock, what a relief! The schools threw open their doors and calm can return to SE21.

Both of my darlings were wearing a uniform for the first time. Max has now officially finished nursery and Freya has moved to a new all girls school around the corner. Max looked like a little version of his papa in his super tie and grey shorts. I was so proud, and really rather tearful.

Freya looked like a darling doll - her blonde curls cascading over her shoulders, her crisp tiny shirt and tie, one knee sock dangling at her ankle...

Everyone was kitted out in appropriate attire including new uncomfortable shoes, (mine really cut into me and I may just take them back to Emma Hope for a refund...) I had my diamonds specially cleaned at Tiffany in Sloane Square on Saturday and bought another new handbag for the occasion.

The school bullies were out in force, I shrieked with delight to see them - well one must really make the effort. I graciously declined coffee dans le village, immediately turned and fled out of the gates heading to the train station for fear I would hyperventilate with an anxiety attack.

I almost knocked sweet pregnant Imogen over as she was tearing out of Max's school from the other direction, and she immediately stopped and remarked on the blinding sparkles from my jewelery. "Oh they look really amazing today," she said, "I must insist that my husband buys me an eternity ring when our family is complete in a few months time. That is the form is it not? When our last child is born I am entitled to more diamonds - it is the law."

"Why indeed no," I replied in hushed tones, James was still close by positioning Freya with his long lens and camera next to a bicycle rack. "I acquired my eternity ring when I was pregnant with my first child, I told James it was a maternity ring, a reward for being pregnant."

She initially looked shocked, and then laughed and insisted that I am a very funny and quick witted person.

Oh how we laughed and laughed... before we both ran away from the schools as fast as our legs could carry us.

Actually I was being completely serious. I told James that men bought their wives maternity rings when they were pregnant with their first child...

Poor abandoned James texted me fifteen minutes later to say that Freya went into school with no objections at all! The school gates really are the most terrifying place...

Panic Room

My mother visited unannounced yesterday afternoon. The school summer holidays are drawing to a close and the munchkins are a trifle bored. Max was pounding on the piano while Freya terrorised the au pair, careering about our open plan toy strewn home on her go cart. I was feeling a tad worn out and not quite my normal composed, meticulously groomed and perky self (I was shrieking like a fish wife).

Brenda was horrified by the scene, to her - image is everything. "When I was your age I was a widow with four young children, no dishwasher and no au-pair, how dare you look so disheveled, you have it all!" she scolded. "You should be praising God himself for your wealthy Protestant of a husband, and on your knees to Our Blessed Virgin Mary for your profusion of household appliances."

"Oh Mother darling" I replied. "Don't you remember, didn't you have a parlour to hide in? A panic room of your very own? Why I didn't even know there was an additional reception room in our house until I was a teenager, no children were ever allowed in! You had your own clean and private child free adult space to hide in. Open plan living is the devils own creation," I explained.

"That is indeed true" said Brenda. "And your Aunty Lou lived just up the road, we were great support to each other. In my day, all the mothers smoked to keep their stress levels down, and we took buckets of Tamazepam and would hide in the parlour for hours on end to calm our nerves... I could beat my children to my hearts content with a slipper or even a sweeping brush. Indeed, those were the days, you poor love."

I felt really close to her then, and I thought she might even embrace me. Instead, Brenda handed me a cork screw, pointed to the wine chiller, said "Damn the Scandinavians" and scurried out of the house...