Crummy mummy has a comeback! Bonus story

Thursday! Top day for Crummy Mummy! She was delighted, for a start, by the comment of a friend who had written, online, that really the earlier chapter of Crummy mummy was the story of "Yummy mummy and her magnificent breasts." But, aha! I can shoot that one down, for I am wearing St Tropez tan and have hoicked up the breasts", thought crummy mummy victoriously. This is a curious game that introverted and self conscious women - possibly all women - tend to play. Yes: she knows. It isn't big and it isn't clever, either.

Hmmm: open classroom day in crummy mummy's corner of the world. Senior has made a Japanese garden; Junior is doing France. "What do they do in France, then?" asked crummy mummy, keen to be supportive of the teachers' work. "They have markets with cheese and eggs and they speak France language."

Crummy mummy visits Senior's room: she notices he is wearing his t shirt inside out and has a black pencil-covered nose, like a teddy bear. He shows her a Japanese garden. "That's lovely darling." "It's probably not mine", says he, "because we tried to make a pond with the crab shell you gave me, but the shell leaked and the garden flooded and the cardboard collapsed and then it fell on the floor." There are some exquisite gardens on display, though. Also, Senior looks happy and he gives her the "easy" entry level Sudoku puzzle sheet because he reckons she won't be able to do the hard ones. Crummy mummy does, however, score full marks in the "put the events of the Buddha's life in the right order" task. "It's time for you to go now" says Senior "Or you'll do that thing where you start teaching people."

Senior's class teacher tells her that he's a bit confused by the movements in the Japanese dance which they will perform in front of parents and pupils a little later. In the event it doesn't matter because Senior has placed himself, as in previous years, behind a pillar. Crummy mummy gets her 2010 "shots of the pillar" to show daddy. In the same arena, Junior performs a French song with accompanying hand movements. He performs with gusto, having told her before that the song is called "John Petinkee dancer." "I think it might be called "Jean le petit dance -eu (little French grunt and inflexion), darling." "Don't be silly mummy: his name is John Petinkee." During the performance, crummy mummy notices a preponderance of Boden matelo stripes and attractive red and blue shorts, echoing the French flag. Junior is wearing turquoise beach shorts and a home made effort on top: a white t shirt with a French flag on it displaying the legend "Vive La France."

"Well", said yummy mummy, "we all tried our best." Back home, she awards herself a yellow merit certificate and fills the too small paddling pool so that the kids can have a punch up in it before tea.

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Well, never say I'm not versatile: you got graveside wonderings and comedy crummy mummy back to back today! xxxx

Crummy Mummy OR diary extract of a very bad girl

On the shelf in the boys' school, there was a book of this title. On the cover, there was a mortified-looking boy and a mother with rather large hair and wearing bright colours. "Oh - that'll be me, then."

Crummy mummy tried to be on top of things. This week she had helped with the collection of items for a Japanese garden and put together an outfit for her 6 year old's 'French' parade and song ( having daubed "Je suis un rock star" on the back of it, she recanted and made a more sober version, having surmised that one of her son's teachers might not approve). Then she had gone through the younger child's road safety  booklet after the visit from the man with the amusing name (it wasn't quite Dr Goodhead -as in the Bond film- but it was close enough to make her snigger). Junior told her there were just a couple of things he didn't understand.

"What are those, darling?"

"The things about crossing the road."

Great. Between them, crummy mummy and Dr Goodhead had some work to do.

The children had a fist fight before leaving the house.

"I hate you!"

"You smell! and the cats like me more than you! I wish you was never my brother EVER and I saw you NAKED!"

"Raaaaaaaa!"

Lunge. Hair pull. "HE STARTED IT AND HE STEALED MY MATCH ATTAX FOR HIS OWN!"

The Japanese garden again. Crummy mummy hurriedly shoved her bamboo sprig in someone's green bin on the school run when she saw other children's magnificent glossy foliage.

Spellings. "I'm on it, miss!"

Japanese technological products in the home homework. Check. A moment of misunderstanding, though, had seen the inclusion of a book of Haiku on the list.

Pillowcases for 6 year old for an as yet unidentified future task. Check - including one of the two for another crummy mummy who did not keep surplus white pillowcases. "Whoa!" said crummy mummy: "I am getting ahead, here." But that was before she discovered that she had been supposed to provide a Japanese costume for the next day.

Another homework just discovered: back to the road safety booklet and the work of Dr Goodhead. This was an altogether weightier tome to be studied by older child. Plus, if he successfully completed the next week's road safety outing, he got a certificate. Crummy Mummy noted that she might not have worded it quite like that. Then, her eye fell upon a grammar error and two spelling mistakes on some correspondence and she felt the red pen urge, then was ashamed because she had nothing to be on a high horse about. Especially, as one of her friends pointed out, she had accidentally worn a cleavage-exposing dress the previous week and made a twit of herself. Accidentally, that is, because crummy mummy - unlike the sleeker yummier mummies in the playground - had not noticed the popping off of two buttons and subsequent, slightly slapstick exposure of breasts in the key stage one area.

Crummy mummy shuffled off home, to practise (note to educational establishment: practice with a c is a noun; with an s it is a verb) mummy skills with the help of a book . On the doorstep there was a dead frog; it was next to a spider crab shell. The shell had been intended for the Japanese garden material; the dead frog was unrelated but a present from the cat. Inside the house, she found a letter that she had meant to read the previous night: it said that school dinner money was in arrears and the now unable to feed your child bit was underlined twice in red biro. But it was a fine sunny day and crummy mummy heard a toddler wailing and a blustering mother trying and failing to keep her cool somewhere beyond the back of the house. She felt a bit better - even got to thinking that, if she did manage to tuck her dress into her knickers on school run today, it was hardly the end of the world. And they were very nice knickers, purchased recently when some well- meaning friends told her that her lingerie was threadbare. See, crummy mummies are crummy in other areas, too.