Wife is on a photography job at the moment, so the not inconsiderable task of delivering the three children to school fell to me.
My ambition was to get them there on time, and without having sworn (which may seem like a lowly ambition, but believe me, herding cats looks like a doddle compared to getting three children to school on time), and I managed it.
Daughter was always going to be the toughest customer: she has an approach to personal style, grooming and dress that make Beau Brummel look like a slap-dash compromise merchant. The right knickers took a while to locate, and it was a feat of UN-style negotiation to coerce her into tights away from socks – but this was as nothing compared to Hairstylegate. Wife has recently taken to putting Daughter’s hair in bunches – a feat of dexterity that defeats me, so I went for what I thought was a sensible alternative (ie: one that drew her long hair back and out of her eyes, securing it in a ponytail at the back of her head). This did not meet with her approval – by which I mean that upon examination of the finished result in the mirror, she exclaimed “Dada!” in a horrified tone (as if I had coiled a couple of turds around her head) and added “That won’t do at all!” (something that I presume she has picked up from Wife). A mere four attempts later, we had something that she deemed acceptable. The boys couldn’t have been easier (once I had persuaded Youngest Son to put his jumper on OVER his shirt, rather than vice versa; and had broken the news to Eldest Son that Ben 10 pants were a thing of fantasy and would not be materialising in his wardrobe any time soon…) and off we went.
When I got into the Agency, I talked to World’s Greatest PA about the strange experience of going back to school (and specifically the impenetrable curriculum meeting that Wife and I attended last night, that threatened “Science” for four year-olds). Science is a particularly personal fear of mine, based on the lowering experience of having scored so low in the Physics Mock O’ Level that my mark was featured as an “N.B.” rather than as a proper score, lest I bring the average score for the whole class down too substantially. No such problems for World’s Greatest P.A., it seems – just the affectionate memories of how one of her adolescent team-mates attempted to disguise the evidence of someone’s perm having been introduced to a Bunsen burner (“it went up like tinder”), which gave rise to one of my favourite quotes of the year to date: “Aaah, the smell of burning hair and Lentheric!”
