Ryan is in his ante-preschool year at a nursery 2 or 3 miles from Callum & Rachel's school. Bare bones of the story being that the council made an arse of it when they decided the capacity of the school in this area, and the nursery had to close to make way for classrooms. There are no official nursery catchments, but we are now leaning to this particular nursery where capacity has been increased to cope with the new demand. The whole situation is a parking minefield.
To save boring with you with all of the details, I did one day (just after the major snow which shut the schools for a week back in early December) park in the car park of a hotel close to the school and was rudely asked to move my car. Parking is bad in the area but after the snow, the pavements were impassable and piles of snow prevented parking in most of the cul-de-sacs usually used. Being a sane and rational human being, I of course stayed very calm....... then immediately freaked out about the safety of my children, the ongoing parking issues, and the rudeness of the hotel manager. I'd also had a fixed penalty notice on my car a few weeks before for being a little on the kerb. Luckily, the notice contained a snotty warning letter rather than an actual fine, however, sanity left me for a while (as if often does) and I came home writing a rather highly strung email to the community police, the school, the hotel...... and as the piece de resistance, I copied in the local rag expecting nothing to come of it. Sanity returned with its tail between its legs when the irate hotel manager phoned me to discuss the email. To be very fair, once we'd both calmed down, she apologies for her rudeness, I apologised for my overreaction, and that was that. However, a couple of days later the press rang and I thought ohhhhh shhhheeeeeeeit. He asked a few questions, and at the end of the conversation asked if there was anything else I'd like to add. Gulp. Flashes of a double page spread in the Sun, with the paparazzi catching me doing the school run with no bra and unbrushed hair. Not that I would. Honest. Well, not without a hat and a big coat. (Incidentally, I didn't, and still haven't, heard from the school or community police).
I bought the press that week, and there was nothing, but many similar stories regarding parking at other schools and treacherous pavement conditions. Phew. Sat back and relaxed, with a background buzzing in my brain, blowing this thing out of all proportion. In my head, I'd decided that the paper would depict me as an ungrateful sod of a mother who thought nothing of the nursery staff, was abusive to residents and local businesses, would print everything from my full address and phone number to dress size (and the latter is the most worrying of the numbers in my post natal state), and I'd be met one morning by an angry mob with billboards who would slash my car tyres while I dropped Ryan off.
Two weeks on, and a friend alerted me this evening to my presence on page 13.... here we go!!! So off I went to tesco, jeans over pyjamas. Well, ok, lesson learned. The worry really was out of proportion, and I'd still prefer not to be in there but it didn't make me look like an absolute psycho who lost the plot one snowy morning. There was a hint of exaggeration, a bit of dramatic emphasis, but all in all, it really only highlights the problems faces by those of us who must drive our kids to the nursery.
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