Adventures of a Middle-Aged Matron

Blind Faith

2016-05-23T09:13:00.000+01:00

I had assembled a rattle, a teddy, a pencil sharpener and a Duracell battery to flourish at a circle of three-year-olds in Sunday school. With these I hoped, by some divine miracle, to explain the mystery of the Trinity. Why, if things went well, I might even end up understanding it myself.

As the introit hymn began, my optimism was fading. How do you teach the infinite and the unknowable? How, armed with my household plunder, do I foster faith in the unseen?

I had underestimated the quiet certainty of children.

Has anyone, I asked, seen God? The Duracell battery, concealed in a rummage bag, was waiting to show how one can believe without seeing. But…

"I have!" piped a three-year-old.
"Where?" I asked, disconcerted.
"In the jungle."
"What did He look like?"
"He had a long trunk".

A pause. I held my props ready to enlighten the doubters.

"Has anyone else seen God?" I asked.
"I have!" replied a four-year-old.
"Where?"
"In the garden."
"What did He look like?"
"He had a white T shirt."
"How do you know it was God?"
"Because I saw him."

Driving Parents Round the Bend

2016-05-16T19:12:00.002+01:00

'Bucker!' cursed my then two-year old when she got behind the wheel of her Little Tike car. 'Bucker, bucker, bucker!' I admonished her for swearing. 'I have to,' she said. 'I'm driving.'

Now her language has become more decorous as she steers a Skoda across the roof of a car park and topples a bollard. And she keeps a cool that would elude me as she dodges an oncoming car and brakes just before the wall that separates us from a five-storey drop onto the Brent Cross retail park.

Multi-storey car parks do not bring out the best in my character, but my 13-year-old shows signs of being superior in temperament and skill. Behind, her 11-year-old brother reverses tidily into a free parking space. Unlike me he collects no strangers' wing mirrors in the manoeuvre. I, meanwhile, am still recuperating from wrestling my own Skoda through the perils of the North Circular to get here. I had to get the Vicar to park it.

The children are having their first driving lesson. They have yet to learn how to work the washing machine, turn off the bath taps or flush the lavatory, but I don't let youth and inexperience stand in the way of mastering clutch control high over the London rooftops.

Young Drivers, which offers lessons for 11-17 year olds on sites across the country, cites road safety as the, er, driving force behind its programmes. Research from Sweden shows that accidents are cut by 40 per cent if drivers get behind the wheel early enough and, the thinking continues, children are safer crossing the road if they have experienced how the world looks through a windscreen. As my mother was run over on a zebra crossing, that strikes me a good enough reason put my babies in charge of two hatchbacks.

The lessons in dual-control cars follow the Driving Standards Agency curriculum so the pupils learn the same skills as 17-year-olds training for their driving test with instructors who, on weekdays, work for adult driving schools. The difference is that children are easier to teach. 'The younger the child the more receptive they are,' says the manager of the Brent Cross branch, Carmine Mastrogiacomo. 'By 17 they have started to form their own opinions about techniques.'

The off-road sites are kitted out with cones and signs and children spend the session negotiating them. Steering, apparently, is the hardest skill to master. 'A lot of children are used to steering wheels with Playstation and Go karts and are taken aback at how much further you have to rotate to turn a car,' says Mastrogiacomo. 'They also tend to look at the bonnet instead of where they want to go.'

Steering, concurs the 13 year-old, was the greatest challenge, whereas the 11-year-old was daunted by the clutch when stopping and by tight bends in the figure of eights sketched in plastic cones. By the end of the hour both had completed Level 1 which encompasses starting, stopping and steering. By the end of Level 6 drivers will have learnt to judge speed and distance and practised overtaking and parallel parking. Crucially, they should know to brake when confronted by old ladies crossing zebras, although traffic and pedestrians will come as a shock when they are old enough to be unleashed on public highways.

For the 13-year-old the experience was revelatory. 'When you see your parents driving it looks easy, but it isn't,' she says. 'Now I know how scary it can be I might be a bit more accepting of Dad's swearing!'

The children were guests of Young Driver. Sessions cost £34.95 for half an hour and £64.95 for an hour. Birthday party bookings start from £109.95 for six guests.

When your child goes missing...

2015-12-03T17:15:00.000+00:00

It was 8am when the 13-year-old left for school. As usual I had forgotten to pack the 11-year-old's lunch, so as usual I was distracted by Hovis crusts when she called out a goodbye.

It was 11am when the school texted to say that she had not turned up. They asked me to ring but my calls landed in a voicemail box. I crouched over my phone and decided to think things through rationally.

I thought of how I had berated her for her messy room when I'd bidden her goodnight and how I'd complained of her rolled up skirt instead of a morning greeting. I thought of a man in a van snatching her off the street and of a secret tryst with a Facebook imposter. I recalled headlines of body parts in bin liners, of teenage runaways and hit-and-run drivers. I imagined all the empty Christmases of the future without my little girl in.

It was an hour before the school returned my message and told me that she had been in class all along. In that hour, the world shifted infinitesimally.

I spend a lot of time on my daughter - a lot of time castigating her for smearing foundation on my towel and nail polish on the bath; for plundering the biscuit tin, skimping her homework, ignoring her bedtime and isolating herself on a computer screen.

I do not spend enough time sharing her enthusiasms, inviting her thoughts, appreciating her being. I often think nostalgically of the little girl she used to be; I can't remember the last time I treasured the young woman she has become.

Now the panic is over, I am grateful for that tortured hour. We are inclined to appreciate what we have only once we have lost it. But in my case it was given back to me.

I hope I shall remember now to overlook the superficial annoyances and be thankful for my blessings. I had intended to start tonight - but oh boy, the state of her bedroom when I went in to welcome her home!

The Change

2015-09-24T14:09:00.000+01:00

They say it happens to all of us sooner or later. It's just that you can never quite believe it will really happen to you.

You try to ignore the early signs. The disconcerting weight gain that means old favourites no longer fit and old styles no longer suit. The loss of interest in cherished pastimes; the hours of wakefulness while the household sleeps.

Then come the secret stashes of comfort food, exhausted afternoons behind closed curtains. There's the apathy, the anger, the addiction to soaps in the need for escapism.

What keeps you going are the highs. The sudden flaming enthusiasms, companionable shopping trips, heart-to-hearts in the bedroom and, always underlying, that intoxicating sense of possibility.

The change of life is a frightening thing. It requires total adjustment of everything you took for granted. You have to rethink the way you communicate, the way you think, where and when and how you go. You know the future depends on how you cope with it. It's a balancing act between holding out and letting go, speaking or silence, cosseting or independence.

What they don't so often tell you is that, in its vividness and unpredictability, it's glorious. And today it happened to me. For the first time, I have become the mother of a teenager!

Happy birthday to my no-longer-little girl.

Wild Life

2015-09-17T15:04:00.001+01:00

Lately I've been counting the days till Tuesdays. Tuesday is usually the only night in the week that I get to go out. To put the bins out. Those three minutes inhaling the darkness and feeling the damp pavement through my slippers remind me of the nocturnal life that exists beyond my sofa rug.

Yes, Tuesday nights have tided me over pretty effectively these last ten years. But last week, when I realised my bedtime had inched forward to 9.30pm, I wondered whether I should Get Out More.

It's not that I don't live a life of vigour and adventure:

It's just that my fast living usually involves waterproofing and never takes place under cover of darkness. After 16 years of marriage I feel I deserve more.

It was surprisingly easy to arrange the assignation and the church hall seemed to the most convenient place to do it. Unsure of the dress code for untamed nightlife, I borrowed the school shoes my son has grown out of and some sinuous lycra from my daughter.

'Big booty!' exclaimed a voice as I crept into the dimly lit chamber. I was disconcerted when I realised I was required to take my full-length Turpin off before the excitement could begin. At this point I didn't even know their name. Shyly I disrobed. I felt naked out at night without a wheelie bin in my arms.

I'd prepared some small talk, just to break the ice as we got to know each other, but the stranger didn't bother with preliminaries. Down on the floor I was, on all fours, trying to gyrate my behind in rhythm with theirs. I studied the stained parquet on which I'd so recently played church bingo and tried to think of England.

Then they had me up again, thrusting my stiff hips at them and massaging my cotton contours. 'Big, big booty!' cried the voice and I began to worry about bladder control.

By the end of that rendez-vous my thighs throbbed from unaccustomed demands and I was aflame. I think I could acquire a taste for nightlife, but next time I'll leave my thermal vest off before attempting Zumba!

Summer Style

2015-05-31T18:21:00.000+01:00

I am not a great fan of summer. I prefer to remain resolutely in my thermal vest, hoping that the weather will take a turn for the worse. But there comes that point, earlier and earlier it seems to me, when the forecasters threaten Mediterranean heat and I am obliged to excavate my summer wear from under the spare room bed.

That necessitates the annual hunt for the iron to tame cottons after months in cramped hibernation. And the iron, which has also spent months in hibernation, short circuits the kitchen while the Vicar has the roast in the oven. The only way to avoid risking the Sunday lunch is to donate the crumpliest clothes to the local cat charity. The rest I hang in place of my winter woollens where I contemplate them with misgivings.

In winter you know where you are with a pair of wellies and a swaddling of corduroy. But it's a struggle to know how to dress suitably for the essential routines of summer:

Shorn of that vest, hidden attributes are liable to sag publicly as you go about your daily business:

Even a barbecue evening can require painstaking sartorial adjustments:

And suddenly ones Sunday best has to adapt to those inevitable seasonal demands:

On frigid May mornings, by swapping your cable-knit for your 12-year-old's classmate's swimsuit, you can rise to the occasion, only to find it exposes body parts that the razor hasn't yet explored:

Experience has taught me to throw something sturdy and wipe-able over ones lacy camisole tops when wafting forth on a summer afternoon:

The trouble is that you compromise that floaty, sun-kissed style that the clothes catalogues urge on you when the temperature rises. However, the children, behind the Vicar's back, have shown me that there is a simple way to dress practically for these unpredictable conditions while retaining that summery floral look:

How did you pack for a summery, fashionable half term?

A Life Sentence

2015-04-13T22:38:00.001+01:00

This was my mother two years ago:

This was the newspaper where she had been features editor for 40 years:

This was the zebra she crossed on her way home from work on the night of November 26th 2013:

This was the consultant from the adjacent hospital who failed to stop in time:

This is the hospital where my mother spent five months recovering from her injuries:

This is how many times the court hearing was delayed to accommodate the driver's defence team:

This is the magistrates court where the trial took place 18 months later:

This was the sentence, along with costs and a £15 victim surcharge, when the driver was found guilty of driving without due care and attention:

This is the sentence my mother, brain-damaged, disabled and dependent, is serving:

A stiffer sentence would not change anything. The driver was not speeding or phoning or drunken. He made a fleeting mistake. A mistake anyone of us could make when we drive a familiar route home. A mistake that cost my mother her job, her dignity and her independence and which he relives every time he gets in a car.

But the fact that someone flashed by a speed camera will automatically receive a harsher punishment - penalty points and a £100 fine - shows that there's something wrong with the law. Speeding counts as dangerous driving whether or not there's a victim. Running someone over on a zebra because you were not looking properly is driving without due care and attention and only if they die does the law, as it stands, recognise the consequences.

My mother nearly died from her injuries. The magistrates were unable to take this into account because the offence of causing serious injury by careless driving does not exist. It should do. Not so that weary doctors who don't look where they're going are obliged to face jail, but so that the charges acknowledge the difference between damaging a bollard through inattention and damaging a woman on her way home from the office. So that families don't have to wait 18 months for what counts as a minor matter to reach the front of the queue in court. So that the lawmakers and anyone who gets behind a wheel appreciates that it doesn't require death for a life to be destroyed.

A Life of Decorum

2015-03-26T10:20:00.000+00:00

The Church, I always thought, is a bastion of dignity and decorum. It was logical to assume, therefore, that when I married in to it, some of these qualities would rub off on me. I am not alone in that delusion. The eyes of strangers remain lifeless when I am introduced by name. But when that qualifying epithet 'the Vicar's wife' is added, as it always is, they gaze with new interest and respect. They see, I suspect, someone who starches her underhose and spends Saturday nights pulsing over box sets of Songs of Praise.

Behind closed doors, however, vicarage life has been a disappointment. Dignity and decorum, precariously simulated through my twenties, fled the moment I took my vows and neither has been seen since. It's not just the fact that, when I am mid way through an Adele impression, an archdeacon is liable to emerge from the Vicar's study, or that I'm required to host total strangers in my polar bear dressing gown when the Vicar runs late for a meeting. It's that the whole behind-the-scenes business of bearing Christian witness can be - well, undignified.

'Can you make me a crown of thorns,' the Vicar asks as he arrives with the morning tea. And so much later, while the kids' supper is smouldering in the oven, I grab a thorn-proof bag and dash to the park to gather materials. Too late I realise the bag contains half the household cleaning equipment. 'Are you all right?' asks a dog walker as I crouch in the mud wrestling a duster that's become impaled on a bramble. A bottle of Pledge rolls out from between my ankles. I realise it's my mental well-being he's concerned about. I look as though I'm dusting the blackberry bushes.

There was that Sunday, early in my new role, when the bell tolled for the Sunday service and the parish matrons promenaded to church while I straddled a Fairy Liquid bottle in the vicarage kitchen and filleted it with a steak knife. The Vicar had lost all his dog collars - those errant plastic crescents that worm their way into the most intimate parts of a household - and my emergency improvisation served the purpose. Until the end of Mass, that is, when I noticed the royal coat of arms emblazoned on his neckline and the words 'By appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, manufacturer of soap and detergent'. 'I thought it was a special one for fancy occasions,' said the churchwarden comfortingly.

It's not that I resent joining the throng of tailored commuters on the tube home from work with a large fluffy sheep's head protruding from my brief case. You have to accept donations for the church fete raffle when and whereever they are offered. I've grown used to the annual chore of scraping mummified grapes off the family fruit bowl so the feet of the faithful can be washed in it on Maundy Thursday and when I have to raid my sanitary stash to conjure up Abraham's beard or stiffen the forefinger of a Marigold as visual aids for the Vicar's sermon, I rise resignedly to the occasion. I can even recall that incident with the nipple tassles without blushing.

I cling to the hope, though, that the unglamorousness of vicarage life is belied by my graceful, boiled-wool bearing. I like to think that the queue in Co-op sees a woman of poise and gravitas. The sort of woman who bakes a near flawless banana cake for a new parishioner and takes it round in welcome. Soon afterwards the new parishioner announces he has a reciprocal gift for me. Chocolates, I hope, or a floral tribute. He arrives on the vicarage doorstep bearing a thrillingly large package.

I smile graciously and wait till he's gone before tearing off the wrappings. And I found…that that new parishioner had taken one look at me in my Sunday hat and decided to buy me this:

Revelation

2015-03-16T09:29:00.000+00:00

It was 10am on Sunday. I had done the laundry, served the breakfast, baked a cake, washed up, prepared a stew, riddled the fire and laid out squash and biscuits for the cubs and scouts in church.

When, I thought, does Mothering Sunday begin?

2pm on Sunday. I had attended church, served squash and biscuits to the cubs and scouts, sat through the Annual Parochial Church Meeting, cooked the lunch, washed up and mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors.

When, I thought, does Mothering Sunday begin?

7pm on Sunday. I had sorted the under-stairs cupboard, changed the sheets, crashed out of a Monopoly game with the children, made their tea, washed up, fetched in the coal, unblocked a drain and performed an emergency dash to Co-op.

And it began to dawn on me…

…I had relished every minute of it all. I don't usually find the vigour to bake after breakfast. The bed sheets had at least another month of wear left in them. The kitchen floor hasn't been washed since our tabby vomited up bird parts last autumn and ordinarily I leave my kids for hours on their iPods rather than face a board game.

But this Sunday I was unusually energised. Even the fistful of drowned slugs jamming the kitchen drain gave me satisfaction. And there was enough of this miraculous energy left over to be nice to my children who, startled by my novel sunniness, suspended hostilities, ate my stew without weeping and hung the laundry on the drying rack.

It struck me then - a truth I have never realised before. Mothering Sunday is not about being feted by my children; it's about earning them. The chores were a tribute, not drudgery.

Today I have lapsed back into my customary cantankerousness. There was nothing invigorating about packing the school lunch boxes. But, when I quail at the thought of enduring Key Stage 2 spelling lists this evening, I shall try to remember yesterday when I was newly grateful for my children, instead of expecting them to be grateful for me.

How was it for you?

Mothering

2015-03-14T19:07:00.000+00:00

In a remote part of the cemetery is a small stone urn, dwarfed by the tombstones around it. Inscribed on the sides is simply 'Mum' and 'Dad' and the year of their deaths in the 1960s. There's no headstone or kerb, nothing to show it's there except, this last December, the glow of coloured lights from a miniature Christmas tree placed beside it.

Such a tiny testament to such huge love. Fifty years after their deaths, someone somewhere can't imagine Christmas without their parents a part of it. Fifty years on, that aged someone marks Mothering Sunday with lily-of-the-valley and a spray of pink rosebuds.

I am awed by the enduring power of human relations and daunted by the expectations it implies of parenthood.

That devotedly tended urn exposes the void that is left when parents pass on. And it shows me the impact we have, for good or bad, on our children.

This Mothering Sunday I shall overlook the wash load that my 12-year-old forgot to hang up, the mascara she's smeared on my bath towel, the raid on the biscuit drawer that no one will admit to.

I shall try, as I soothe sibling conflicts and wrestle fractions on school worksheets, to see my chores as a privilege. For domestic demands, that I sometimes feel diminish me, are building a legacy which I hope will power my children on through the decades when I am just a memory.

I Love You

2015-03-08T16:44:00.001+00:00

I am not always affirming with my children. I assume my love shows in my painstaking plucking of burnt bits off the suppers I cook them and in the hours I spend hanging round in New Look.

Maybe, though, this is not enough.

'Do you luuurve me?' asks the 10-year-old on the walk home from school.
'You know the answer to that,' I say absently.

He ponders.

'If I was a bench would you love me?'
'Eh?'
'If I was a gas pipe and you were a gutter would you love me?'
'Um…'
'If you were a washing line and I was clothes would you dry me?'
'I…'
'If I was a sign post and you were a lamp would you light me?'
'Well, I….'
'If I was a bin and you were a recycling bin would you sit with me.'
'How long can you keep this up?'
'If I was a lavatory and you were a p….'
'YES!' I interject hastily. 'I LOVE you!'

Workout

2015-03-01T13:20:00.000+00:00

I like to keep my intellect in good repair. Whenever the Vicar finishes a chick-lit novel I bag it for my bedside table. I'm serious about my looks. Every six months or so, when my hair can no longer be restrained by my bath hat, I pour a friend a gin and she shears it for me. I have, though, never given much thought to my fitness.

It came as a shock, when I hit 40, to realise I could no longer do a forward roll, but I found other evening pastimes that respected my unbending joints.

When my back began protesting at tasks I used to take for granted, I was regretful...

…but I failed to heed the warning signs. It was only when I struggled to heave myself off our sagging sofa that I decided I must face what the other school-gate mums embraced routinely and embark on a fitness regime. They all subscribe to David Lloyd, but I reckon no gym can beat The Vicarage with its state-of the-art facilities and 24/7 opportunities for body-honing. My daily workout has made a new matron of me. Why, the churchwarden, when trying to estimate my antiquity last week, only added a year to my age!

The Stepper

I usually spend twenty minutes a day on a stepping routine to boost my cardiovascular fitness and strengthen my quads, glutes and hamstrings. Adding a weight-bearing element helps slow bone mineral loss.

The Treadmill

The sprint to 9am Sunday School at 9.04am each week has improved the flexibility of my joints, invigorated my circulation and helped fight cellulite. And this vigorous church treadmill is, of course, so very good for the heart.

Rowing Machine

The forward and backwards motion raises the heart rate and increases oxygen uptake, but the real beneficiaries are my rhomboids, trapezius and lats as I flex my back and shoulders. Thighs and calves also get a surprisingly thorough workout as I brace for the thrust. Traditionally, of course, this exercise is performed sitting down...

Weights

Regular resistance training can increase your basal metabolic rate by up to 15 per cent and for every additional pound of muscle burns 50 calories a day.

Press ups

Every evening I extract the cats from under the beds in order to shut them in the kitchen for the night. This lowering and lifting from plank position engages arms, chest, abdominals and other core stabilisers and so strengthens the upper body muscles. The New York Times decreed it 'the ultimate barometer of fitness'.

Aerobic Dance

The nightly ritual of dish-washing has an important impact on heart and lung efficiency and releases endorphins to improve mental health. For maximum effect, stick Elvis Presley on the stereo, grab a mic (a hand whisk or potato masher are useful for this) and start boogying round that tea towel while you're drying the pans.

How do you keep fit?

Dirty Linen

2015-02-23T14:58:00.000+00:00

I am not the most vigilant of housewives. I can't boil the kettle without setting fire to the tea towel. I didn't realise that my new dressing gown has a polar bear hood with ears until a parishioner pointed it out in Co-op and I was startled when the hard lump that had distorted the marital duvet cover all week revealed itself to be my son's missing school uniform.

However, there is one domestic chore over which I am painstaking. Laundry seems to fill otherwise stalwart souls with dread. It needn't. Over many years of domestic management I have perfected a routine that eliminates the most onerous aspects - like ironing, for instance, and the ordeal of Folding Away. For your sakes, I'm prepared to air my dirty linen in public so that you too can keep on top of the family smalls without heartache.

Usually the vicarage line basket looks like this:

Occasionally it looks like this, but that's usually when I've tipped everything out to hunt down my mobile phone:

Transferring one drum-loads worth to the washing machine once the lid no longer shuts has a reassuring visible effect and that's all you need do to keep up appearances for the next week or so. For when the wash programme has finished I leave the contents to marinade for a few days by which time the funny smell justifies another short cycle and defers the Evil Moment of Hanging It All Up.

Next comes the exciting part - sorting through the treasures that miraculously emerge from a hot wash. A bit like a high street ATM is our Bosch - you insert a sheaf of Y-fronts and out comes hard cash (and innumerable bonus extras). Money laundering is big business in the vicarage - but I have to say that Cadbury's Flakes taste better unwashed.

The Evil Moment of Hanging It All Up is made more evil by the blight of socks. It's a curious fact that however many washes you do none of them ever matches up, even when they're all black or striped.

Embrace this as a good thing, though. It means you can put the singletons into a transit camp under the bed which saves you sorting them into their drawers. When the Vicar finally notices that he's run out of black socks he just buys new ones.

Once you have ornamented your airer with underwear, you can take it easy for a couple of days until you find that the lid of the linen basket won't shut again. Then, of course, you have to clear the rack to make way for the next tranche. To do this, fling the relevant items outside the relevant bedroom door and leave them there. This is not indolence, this is teaching your children independence.

Within the week they will have tired of stepping over them to get to their iPods and will gather them up and thrust them back in the linen basket to save themselves the trouble of putting them away. Whereupon you repeat the drum-filling, marinading, rewashing, hanging process and thereby also avoid having to wrestle clothes hangers and half-hinged wardrobe doors.

I can't lie. There will come a point when the landing is inaccessible because of the linen mounds, the laws of gravity forbid any additions to the linen basket, the drying rack is still sagging with last month's washing and the family has run out of underpants. At this stage you do have to bite the bullet and find homes for the backlog. This process need never, though, under any circumstance involve an ironing board. Sheets slept in for a night will only crease up and wrinkles miraculously smooth from clothing after a few hours of wearing.

Nor need you bother about folding. They'll inevitably be hurled to the floor when family members are seeking their missing chewing gum/haemorrhoid cream/dog collars. Simply employ your child's recorder to batten them down so that the drawer/door shuts and, while your neighbours are toiling over their ironing piles, go get a life in front of The Home Show.

The vicarage linen cupboard

Have you any labour-saving tips to share? Or any spare black socks in search of a life partner?

Second Flowering

2015-02-03T10:06:00.000+00:00

Years I have waited for my Second Flowering to commence. Once I had shed the scent of Napisan, I thought, I would rise resplendent from the mire of motherhood and bedazzle Waitrose check-outs with new radiance. An epilator and a selection of brand new vests have been on standby for the Moment when it happens. The trouble is, it shows no sign of happening.

And so I decide to hurry things along a little. I invite a friend round with a mascara stick. She shows me what to do with lash clamps and gel pens. She turns my eyelids blue and silver and fills in crevices with pink mortar.

Over the ensuing days, with lesser skill, I replicate her efforts. And, as I face the world with Cleopatra eyes, things do indeed begin to happen.

The churchwarden comes hurrying up to me as I jive round my brolly at her 50th wedding anniversary bash. 'That man over there,' she giggles, 'has just pointed you out and said, 'she's going to be a beauty when she grows up'!' I peer at an elderly gentleman hunched myopically in a distant corner of the church. It must be my mascara, I think. 'It's because you're dancing like a six-year-old,' explains my daughter.

I'm chatting to a fellow mother under a lamp post outside the scout hall. A car crawls along the kerb and comes to a halt alongside us. Two youths peer out of the passenger window. 'We're being picked up!' marvels my companion. It must be my mascara, I think. Then the car slides into reverse and the youths lean out to greet a blonde who's been awaiting them in the shadows further up.

I'm discussing bathroom cleaning products and Syria with the man at the Boots check-out. 'You will forever linger in my mind!' he grins as he hands me a voucher for anti-ageing cream. It must be my mascara, I think. 'It's because you went on so much about your black mould,' hisses my daughter.

I am becoming disillusioned with Second Flowerings. I've spent £15 on beauty aids, but no heads turn in the Communion queue and the Vicar is oblivious to my coal-black lashes. Even the young man who pursues me through Co-op turns out to be returning a tin of Vaseline I've dropped.

Then, as I serve teas to school children in the church hall, a Year 6 girl peers at me closely. 'You're wearing mascara!' she remarks. I am jubilant. 'You're the first person who's noticed,' I say. She looks at me pityingly. 'Anyone would notice,' she replies. 'It's running all down your face.'

Has your Second Flowering begun yet?

School-gate Fashionista

2015-01-26T09:21:00.000+00:00

Nearly three years have passed since, inspired by a new generation of mummy bloggers, I shared my tips on how to conquer the school-gate catwalk. Things change in three years. Fashion moves on, circumstances alter and body parts start slipping. High time, therefore, that I show you how my style has evolved to meet the demands of 2015 and how you too can get the look that turns heads on the school run - or, in our case, hike.

Logistically, this sharing has proved a challenge. My usual photographer has started secondary school and is unavailable and the Vicar eats muesli at 8.30am and can't be disturbed. Moreover, the 10-year-old has refused to capture some of my more, er, retro ensembles. Here, however, is a photo log of my sartorial week so you can see how a woman's wardrobe moves with the times.

Monday

2012 2015

Some of the striking fashion differences in this picture can be explained by the fact that the first was taken at the beginning of summer and the most recent in mid January. Winter, for instance, calls for The Hat. The Hat guarantees you stunned stares from fellow parents and is a useful nesting place for tissues when you don't have pockets. It was a Christmas present from my mother three years ago, so you'll have to guess the price and origins. The scarf was courtesy of the Vicar and, if moth holes are as reliable an indicator of age as tree rings, it's passed its fifth birthday and is equally priceless. Who needs plastic surgery with a coat like this (£32 from Harpers Bazaar army surplus stores in Malvern)? Beneath it I'm wearing tartan pyjamas (Primark £8) and a pair of pink bedsocks (99p from the 99p Stores). The most obvious transformation is the wellies. Alas, my original Hunters only lasted two years before admitting several gallons of the local stream on one morning commute. This replacement pair was also a present from my mother. Genuine Hunters, don't you know. Price on application. Total price: £40.99 and some. Plus the Hunters.

Tuesday

The secret of sartorial success is to turn heads while adapting seamlessly to circumstance. My legs are modelling skinny jeans (£21 from M&S before you were born). Luckily the coat (£32 from Harpers Bazaar army surplus store) hides the evidence that cream is far too pale a hue for the unpredictability of our route to school. If you zoom in you'll see the label on those boots show they're genuine Hunters. Total price: £74 plus The Hat and Hunters.

Wednesday

Ditto Tuesday. The jeans are the same as yesterday. No point muddying two pairs of trousers. Note the designer Hunters which lift the whole ensemble. Total cost: £74 plus the Hunters.

Thursday

2012 2015

A menacing forecast and a tardy alarm clock mean we're driving today. That allows the mud to dry on my army waterproofing while I show off my contours in spring green. The coat was bought in the Next Christmas sale in 2007. £35 I think it was. I should point out to those wanting instant gratification that that coveted distressed vintage look takes years of patience to achieve. Within it I'm sporting a skirt bought in the same Christmas sales as the coat, only across the mall at Boden (£35), and a jumper from Debenhams (£20) with Oxfam polyknit as insulation(£4). The boots bore a £180 price tag from Hobbs. To calm me, the assistant told me they should last five years. Ten years on they still have most of their parts attached. Total price: £274.

Friday

If you want to speed up the morning drop-off, wear moss green corduroy cut-offs and watch your little ones sprint the last hundred yards to school to avoid being seen with you. These were £4 from Barnardo's in Godalming. The average property price in Godalming is £513,000, so probably these crops were worn by a stockbroker's wife before me. The day after this picture was taken, though, they mysteriously disappeared from my wardrobe. You'll notice the scarf and coat have changed. It's essential for a woman's wardrobe to show variety. The former was a tenner from Covent Garden market. The latter is a genuine designer Barbour, although not the right kind of genuine designer Barbour according to the 12-year-old who only recognises the shiny quilted Gold Label Glamour range. A tissue in the pocket dates it to circa 2008 when I bought a box of Superdrug multi-coloured 2-ply by mistake. £80 as I recall (the Barbour, not the tissues). And no, those aren't my Hunters. I had to borrow the 12-year-old's wellies due to an aquatic calamity on yesterday's school hike home. But I hope you appreciate that they still bear the Hunters label (£19 from TK Maxx). Total cost: £113.

Now it's your turn. How do you combine glamour and adaptability on the obstacle course that is the school run?

Not for Publication

2015-01-21T14:19:00.000+00:00

The 10-year-old is sagging over his homework book. He has, he explains, to write about Something Funny that has happened in the family.

An unwanted thought comes to mind: 'You know that story I was telling yesterday about Great Grandma's lavatory light switch and the chipolata?' I say.
'Oh yes!' he exclaims, brightening.
'Just make sure you don't use that one.'

There's a crestfallen pause. Then he perks up.
'What about the thing you and Auntie did at Christmas with the Brussels sprout?'
'That,' I say firmly, 'is not for publication.'

Further silence. A procession of memories discomforts me. I censor each one of them and cast urgently about for an example of wholesome hilarity which will show the vicarage in decorous light in the school staff room. 'I suppose you could use the humping game,' I suggest doubtfully. The humping game is a high-suspense competition involving ant hills and always takes place in public. The 12-year-old groans: 'That's not funny, Mum, that's just sad.'

I decide that the safest option is for the 10 year-old to make something up. 'But don't make it embarrassing or undignified,' I say, 'and show it to me first because Dad has to face school assembly tomorrow.'

A short while later he returns with a scribbled sheet. 'Mum and Auntie were washing up,' he reads out. 'Us kids went rushing in because of the terrible noise. They were both wearing saucepans on their heads and yelling a Tina Turner song into a potato masher. We thought it would be safer to join in so we all grabbed kitchen utensils as microphones and then Grandpa stuck his head round the door and waved his good leg to the music and Dad rushed in to complain about the noise, but even he couldn't resist and he grabbed a whisk and began boogying round Mum's tea towel.'

'That,' I say, 'is very original. There's only one problem.'
'What's that?' asks the 10-year-old.
'You might have to read it out in class and, as you know perfectly well, it's the gospel truth!'

Auntie in washing up mode

A Day Off

2015-01-16T18:46:00.001+00:00

9.15am Return from the muddy two-mile hike to and from school drop-off.

9.40am Arrive in church No I to set out forty chairs and six tables for the community singing group. Commence nine commutes down the aisle with the water jug to fill up the tea urn.

11.00am Serve tea to 107 singers.

11.20am Wash up 107 tea cups in the last three inches of hot water dispensed by the tea urn.

Noon Clear away forty chairs and six tables.

1.30pm Chaperone the Vicar's cassock on an emergency dash to the dry cleaner.

2.40pm Repeat the muddy mile to church No II by the school to fill the tea urn.

3.15pm Serve tea and squash to 13 parents and children.

4.15pm Clear away 13 tea and squash cups and mop juvenile footprints off the new laminate in the church hall.

5.00pm Start writing a press release on the Heritage Lottery grant towards the church organ appeal .

5.30pm Return to church No I to make up 12 mattresses for the winter night shelter. Set out three tables and 14 chairs for the guests. Commence nine commutes down the aisle with the water jug to fill up the tea urn.

In the midst of the mass irrigation of singers, an elderly lady pauses to receive a cup of tea from me: 'So,' she says conversationally, 'you're not working today then?'

Do you work?!

Sunday School

2015-01-11T14:26:00.000+00:00

It's 8.53am. In seven minutes my Sunday school is due to start a mile up the road, unless, by divine providence, the Vicar has forgotten his sermon notes again and has to dash back home to retrieve them.

I am supposed to be in the church hall laying out pots of craft glue and orange plastic chairs for my handful of young charges. Instead I am on my knees in the vicarage guest room, rummaging through the wardrobe for a ball of brown wool. It's impossible, I've realised, to explain the baptism of Jesus without brown wool.

All I can find is a skein of glittery red tapestry thread. Jesus and John the Baptist will have to be scarlet-headed punk rockers rearing out of a tissue-paper River Jordan. It's now 8.57am. Only the 10-year-old is coated and shod, ready for the high-octane speed trip in the Skoda. The 12-year-old is lying across her bed wearing one leg of a pair of track suit bottoms and diamante headphones. The amorous agonies of Jesse J have deafened her to my bellowed summons. 'Nothing to worry about!' she says as she hunts out coordinating accessories. 'Sunday's meant to be all about lying in!'

9.03am and we are careering up the lane where the church is. The congregation is already half way through the first hymn as I sprint to the door, sowing Pritt Sticks among the memorial stones through the holes in my craft bag. 'Nothing to worry about!' says the 12-year-old, laconically following. 'There probably won't be any children there.'

Once I've wrestled the moody iron door handle into submission and fired two last Pritt Sticks down the nave, most of the congregation have clocked our arrival. And I have clocked the fact that half the infant population of the borough are awaiting me in the children's corner.

Twenty of us cram into the hall. I explain about the river baptism and the Holy Spirit hovering like a dove over Jesus while two of the audience embark on a game of shriek-tag round the table legs. We slather glue over the tables and each other's coat sleeves and a residual amount makes it onto craft paper to enable us to recreate the baptism with tissue paper and stripy fabric squares. The planned half hour turns into 50 minutes. I suspect the Vicar extends his sermons when my name's on the Sunday School rota to test my faith and fortitude.

Then I see the church warden waving frantically through the window. The mayhem of my ministry has drowned out the bell summoning us for Holy Communion. The congregation has embarked on the final hymn as we surge dinfully back into church, trailing a collage of punk John and Jesus and pooling glue over the parquet.

Luckily, the worshippers look kindly upon the infant flock as they hold up their handiwork. Even more luckily, the Vicar looks impressed. 'So, what does the picture show?' he asks. There's silence and I panic. Did I actually remember to name the river Jordan and John the Baptist? I'm relieved when a small boy puts up his hand. 'It shows two men in pyjamas with a hula hoop,' he explains.

The Vicar is looking less impressed. 'Do you know what this is?' he asks, holding up the large red Sunday School bible. This time there is no hesitation. Another small child shrills in reply: 'It's a bus!'

Does anyone else want to take over as Sunday School teacher?

Round Robin

2014-12-15T09:32:00.003+00:00

Dear (note to Vicar: can you check your address book and fill in any dear friends I've forgotten)

Well, here we are again at the end of another year! Who would believe it!! It seems only yesterday that I was penning my letter to you all for 2012 (whoops, yes, I rudely neglected to fill you in on our little successes and adventures last year!!) and now the end of 2014 finds me taking up my pen again, older (and hopefully wiser!!). As I contemplate the looming spectre of middle age (yes, I had another birthday this year!!) I find myself turning philosophical and it strikes me as quite remarkable how one day follows another and one month leads into the next and so a full cycle of seasons begins and ends, each containing their own little triumphs and heartaches!

The children continue to grow and develop as children are so wonderfully wont to do! It was a big day for us when the 12-year-old was selected to represent her class at District Sports!!! I'm proud to report that she would have won her race if she hadn't been outrun by three others!

What she displays on the sports field, the 10-year-old makes up for in intellect - this autumn he entered a poetry reading competition at school! I offered to lend him my copy of Shelley, but he wanted to surprise me and gave a moving recitation about vomit from a contemporary anthology called Disgusting Poems. He modestly tells me that he didn't win, but his originality makes us so proud! Unfortunately, space doesn't allow me to fill you in on all of my pair's remarkable achievements in school and out over the last two years, but you can see a full list here: www.mylittlegeniuses.com (including downloadable photos!!)

I have also enjoyed a few modest successes myself since my last little missive!! The glamorous lifestyles of my Fleet St colleagues inspired me finally to enrol in a members club, so I mustered the £20 subscription and added my name to the rollcall of the Mothers Union! Moreover, my team-leadership skills saw me headhunted in spring - I was appointed chief supervisor of tea urn during the community singing group on Fridays!

Hot (although sadly not literally!!!) on the heels of spring came summer! I know we're among the very lucky few in these times of austerity to be able to bake on warm sands among the mountains and dive for exotica in limpid seas. Yes, the water at Llandudno is like sushi, all swirling green growth and condoms and the 12yo was able to double the size of her collection of Tango cans after skimming the surf!!

Summer 2013 was dominated by loss. Our local Co-Op closed for four months!!! This caused heartache for the kind of mother like me who likes her kids' diet of fishfingers and beans served fresh and so drops everything and dashes down the street when the supper hour arrives each night. The extra few yards we were obliged to walk to buy bread from Budgens would have put a strain on many marriages, but the Vicar and I have come through our shared endurance all the stronger for being so tested. And, in a way, those challenging weeks served as a reminder, as I read the headlines of the deprivation in Margate and the Ivory Coast, that we should not take our blessings for granted!

Our headline news since last I wrote is that I have recruited a cleaner!! I take great pride in my domestic duties, but my efforts to create wildlife corners in the vicarage worried the Vicar (so many Christians are asthmatics) and so we decided to do our bit for the local economy and employ a lovely South American girl called ??? (note to Vicar: could you ask her name if you see her when she next comes) who can do remarkable things with the Miele!

September was a milestone month in the vicarage. The 12 -year-old started big school!!! I look at my baby and think - where did time go??!! She's already proved that vicarage children can exert a powerful influence in the classroom - half her class mates now wear their skirts rolled up to mid thigh and their top four buttons undone!!

As usual the Vicar and I have devoted ourselves to intellectual enhancement in modest hope that we can, in our small way, enrich the minds of the parish faithful. It's so easy, I find, to let domestic monotonies suffocate the psyche and so in spring I read a novel (note to Vicar: what was the name of that Sophie Kinsella we got from Age UK?) and the Vicar has mastered the science of Twitter which has allowed him to keep abreast of the evening menus of friends and strangers and the ponderings of the General Synod!

I write this in some sadness as I come to terms with the loss of old friends. It was all so sudden: one minute they were pacing about their old healthy selves, the next it was all over. The rubber had perished you see and so all the wet seeped in! As you all know, I paid £67 for my Hunter wellies and their short life has affected me badly. But if there's one thing life has taught me it's that whatever will be will be!

Whatever it is, I hope it will be wonderful for you all this Christmas and New Year!!

Love and hugs,

Anna xxxx

The Price of Carelessness

2014-11-14T19:19:00.003+00:00

A year ago this month my mother was run over on a zebra crossing while on her way home from work. She was not expected to survive her injuries and her family was summoned to her bedside to bid farewell.

When, miraculously, she awoke from her coma she was no longer the cheerful matriarch who had been planning the family Christmas. She was the terrified prey of Russian spies whom she reckoned were trying to kill her. She was trapped in a prison cell and clinging to the wreckage of a sinking ship. She hung from my neck begging me to rescue her; she wept over imaginary parties that her family had failed to turn up to.

There is not enough evidence to charge the driver with dangerous driving. Instead, he is to be prosecuted for driving without due care and attention.

But here's the bombshell: there is no offence in law of causing injury by careless driving. Drivers can be charged with causing death or serious injury by dangerous driving or with causing death by careless driving. But the law does not recognise injuries caused by carelessness.

Thanks to the skill of surgeons, my mother did not die, but she wishes that she had. She, who used to care for my disabled father, is now dependent on him. She can't make a cup of tea or drive a car. She has lost her career, her purpose and her self worth. She talks frequently of suicide. My mother is now more like my child. In the eyes of the law, though, her injuries are of no more account than if the driver had felled a lamppost. He, if found guilty, faces a fine and some penalty points.

We have been lucky. 18-year-old Miriam Parker was left brain damaged when a car crossed a red light and knocked her down. The driver was found guilty of driving without due care and attention, but magistrates were powerless to impose a custodial sentence. Her family are now petitioning the government to amend the law so that serious injury caused by careless driving is recognised. 'If she had died, he would have received a one-year mandatory disqualification and we would not have had to worry about the prospect of him getting mere points, say her sisters. 'Why should the fortunate fact that someone survives affect the chance of the driver being disqualified?'

We are still awaiting our day in court. The trial has been delayed three times as the defence argued there was no case to answer. Today it was adjourned again for another five months because an expert witness was required by a crown court trial and crown court trials take precedence over magistrates'. And because the offence is deemed a minor one, our case will not be heard by a crown court.

Any one of us could destroy a life through a moment's inattention. We do not wish the driver who hit my mother to go to prison. But the sufferings of my mother and the family are made worse by the fact that the law does not recognise them. For that reason I beg you to sign the Parker family's petition to help resolve this anomaly.

There needs to be an offence of causing serious injury through driving without due care and attention, for what happened to Miriam and to my mother could happen to any of us at any moment and a life doesn't have to be ended to be destroyed.

How to be a Stereotypical Vicar's Wife

2014-11-09T20:10:00.002+00:00

'You're not a typical vicar's wife,' says the churchwarden as I'm manipulating the tea urn for church refreshments.
'You're not a typical vicar's wife,' says the sacristan as I'm piling dirty plates at the end of a parish lunch.
'Noone would guess you're married to a vicar,' says a Sunday school mother, watching me help a brace of toddlers to bring the gospels to life with a pile of Whiskas boxes.

I am coming to the conclusion that they are right. At ministerial training college, where ordinands learn to be priests, there are no courses to prepare their spouses for the fine art of being a clergy wife. Often these spouses are creatures in shock having married a banker or a publican before the Calling came. They had lived in houses of their own choosing on secular salaries, baked cakes only on their childrens' birthdays and had lie-ins on Sundays.

My Vicar was already completed when I married him so I knew what I was letting myself in for. I was prepared for a guest room bulging with bags of cast-offs for the church fair. I had mastered the diplomatic potential of a Bourbon Creme. I grew used to strangers emerging from the front room as I was waltzing the cat up the hallway and I found faith in the miracle that three plates of cheese sandwiches can nourish fifty souls in the vicarage garden. I was the stereotypical vicar's wife:

Or I thought I was.

What I hadn't realised, as I equipped myself with a seemly supply of tweed skirts, baking tins and smalltalk, was that I'd omitted the most obvious essential for vicarage life: rubber. For what noone warns you is that the lot of a vicar's wife is to be almost continually wet.

Whether it's the commute in your Sunday best to the remoter of your husband's two churches:

The attraction noone else will man at the summer fete:

The parish outing:

And the awkward occasions when - well, never mind!

The thing is, ladies, it could one day be you. There's no knowing when your husband might get that calling and, if it happens, I hope you're better prepared than I was. Don't let my sogginess frighten you. So long as you lay in an arsenal of Marigolds and several back-up wellies, you'll adapt to vicarage life like a duck to water. Just make sure your mascara is waterproof and take the plunge:

How to Spice up a Marriage

2014-10-22T10:09:00.000+01:00

I'm discussing reliable waterproofing with a dog walker on the trudge back from school and suddenly we veer on to conjugal thrills. He tells me how a friend was dumped by her partner because he no longer found her exciting. Because of that, he says, he and his wife resolved to inject daily excitement into their marriage.

I smile politely and make to flee, but he's still in full spate. 'So what I do first thing in the morning,' he continues, visibly invigorated by the memory of it, 'is make her a cup of tea. Another day I might do the washing up. Today it will be dusting. That's what we call excitement - we don't need no swinging from chandeliers.'

As I listen I feel my own pulse quickening. The thought of the Vicar assaulting our black mould makes me dizzy. I picture him running the Miele nozzle over neglected crevices and gouging the remains of last night's supper from the plug hole in the sink.

I stumble home in my mud-slimed wellies. The Vicar is shut in his study. He glances up courteously as I burst in, his fingers still poised over his keyboard. He looks the embodiment of a man who needs marital excitement. I decide not to discompose him mid-sermon. Instead I shall stimulate him when he's least expecting it with techniques for which I've never before found the energy.

I shall, with my own unpractised fingers, fasten the new Harpic blocks that have languished for weeks atop the bread bin on to the lavatory rims. I shall squeeze globs of Felix into the cat bowls before we turn in at night without waiting for him to ask. I might even dig out the iron and smooth his clerical shirts.

But tonight - tonight I shall start big. I shall look out the latex that I keep for emergencies and the miracle potion that prompts such fizz and steam. And, by the time he comes to bed, I shall have descaled our ailing kettle in readiness for that morning thrill of Tetleys.

Friendship

2014-10-16T12:11:00.000+01:00

We modern women expect far too much from marriage says Rosamund Pike in the tabloid I'm squinting at over a stranger's left shoulder. We require our spouses to be our lover, mentor, playmate and best friend, whereas our corseted predecessors expected no more than a dress allowance and an annual baby.

I am in complete agreement. There can be no finer husband than the Vicar, but he is not someone I would turn to when I crave a game of aeroplanes on the hearth rug or consult over the latest worrisome sproutings on my chin.

This month marks 15 years since we pledged to be all and everything to each other till death parts us and, 15 years, on there's noone I'd rather sip tea beside in the marital chamber. But those 15 years have taught me that friends are a vital ingredient for a contented marriage. Our relationship would have been sorely taxed without friends to indulge my addiction to mud walks and garden centres. Friends shield the Vicar from my fascination with petrol price comparisons on local forecourts and from the burden of childcare when I'm detained from school pick up.

It's the finding of these friends that's the challenge. When you relocate often, you need to identify soulmates with speed because you never know when you'll need an all-night babysitter after your mother is run over, or a competitor to spit cherry stones with on balmy evenings.

I've learnt not to waste time on small talk. Months you can fritter at the school gate discussing core curriculum without learning whether your fellow mothers are characters you'd want to to be harnessed with up a 30ft sycamore at Go Ape. No, the promotion of new acquaintance from a scrawled phone number on a Post-it note to an indelible inked entry in my address book is an incisive process that my several house moves have honed to an art. And it's an art I feel I should share so that you too can secure kindred spirits in your first week in a new home.

On meeting a likely stranger you start with obvious preliminaries - their name, age and preferred brand of garden compost. Then you cut to the quick with this failsafe test:

Invite them to play Crack the Egg on your trampoline after morning coffee. Do they:

a) Protest that vigorous activity will dislodge their new hair extensions.
b) Recall an imminent appointment with their financial adviser.
c) Hurl themselves through the net and attempt a backward flip.

Suggest an evening gin picnic armed with a waterproof mat from the 99p shop, a thermos of Gordons and a brolly in case it rains. Do they:

a) Declare that they only drink organic prune juice.
b) Insist instead on a bottle of Prosecco in a city wine bar.
c) Don their wellies with gusto and bring an extra tube of Pringles.

Serve them up a squidge (irresistible nourishment usually involving noodles, peanut butter, spinach and poached egg). Do they:

a) Inform you they are on a macrobiotic diet and never touch animal proteins
b) Claim there's been a misunderstanding and they're due at Cafe Nero as soon as they've got their coat on.
c) Plunge their fork in fearlessly and announce that they've never tasted anything like it.

Produce a pack of cards and request a game of Violent Snap to revitalise your spirits. Do they:

a) Declare themselves handicapped by their acrylic nail extensions.
b) Observe that their six-year-old grew out of Snap two summers ago.
c) Slam their hand shriekingly onto a matching pair and beg a second game.

If your new acquaintance scores mainly a) they are self-oriented and high maintenance and you would probably not wish to dangle from killer heights in their company.

If they answer mainly b) they are self-oriented and high maintenance and their contact details can remain on that Post-it note in the kitchen drawer.

If they answer mainly c) you have struck gold. Embrace them rejoicingly. For priceless rarities like that it's even worth figuring how to programme contact details into the mobile phone you'd forgotten you owned.

With appreciation for my friends. How do you identify your kindred spirits?

Dignity

2014-10-09T14:13:00.000+01:00

I am squatting in the garage trying to dislodge cobwebs and mouse droppings from my cycle helmet with a leaf. The 9-year-old is watching me. 'You,' he says as I cram it onto my head, 'are the most undignified person on this earth!'

I am consoling an ailing check-out assistant with a jelly bean from the pot I carry in my handbag for emergencies. 'Mum!' hisses the 12-year-old, 'don't you realise how embarrassing that looks?'

I am watching Downton Abbey with an all-day breakfast on my knee when a poached egg drops into my slipper. The Vicar glances up. He is too kindly to pronounce judgment, but his eyebrows say it all. I am undignified.

Middle-age and motherhood rob you of many assets - your rainy-day savings account, for instance, and reliable bladder control on the trampoline. But there is one loss that I do not mourn and that is dignity. Dignity, and the exhausting maintenance of it, dogged daily life in my younger days. When a stranger handed me the squished egg sandwich that had slithered from my handbag onto the pavement, I avoided that route to work for weeks in case I should meet him again. I'd grin clamp-lipped at parties for fear that spinach was dangling from my incisors and I'd lurk in the Ladies rather than compromise my decorum on the dance floor.

My 12-year-old suffers similar agonies. Mufti days torment her at school in case she wears the wrong kind of denim and, after vainly trying to ban me from her class Meet and Greet, she issues me with a list of proscribed topics of conversation lest I impair her image.

I, however, have shed such shackles. The company of small children erodes ones dignity so completely that I have long since ceased to take myself seriously and nor do I expect others to. It's a wondrous liberation. I'm comfortable carrying a bumper pack of loo roll up the street from Co-op. I readily agree to jive at the school gate so someone's mother can experiment with a new phone app and I'm unperturbed when, strolling genteely through a shopping mall, I'm grabbed by a saleswoman and told I need bottled sludge from Japanese swamplands to cure my blackhead problem.

Sundays are different, though. On Sundays I defer trampolining until I've washed up the lunch-time roast. On Sundays I wear my most inspirational wool garments and keep my jelly bean pot at the bottom of my handbag. Despite the toddler brawls as I instruct my Sunday school, despite my son testing paper aeroplanes during the sermon and despite an unintentional conversation with a new worshipper about haemorrhoids, I maintain an implacable decorum on this one day a week.

Or I thought that I did. I'm dressing myself for the church service in celebratory hues and telling myself that I wear middle-age with aplomb when the 9-year-old walks in. He surveys me for a moment, then beams. 'You look,' he concludes mirthfully, 'like Father Christmas's helper!'

Do you still have shreds of dignity? If so, get rid of them fast!

How to Identify a Gentleman

2014-09-25T09:53:00.001+01:00

'He looks the sort of man who'd take his weight on his elbows!' said my grandmother upon meeting my father for the first time.

It was the 1960s and my grandmother was prescient. That bastion of English values, Country Life, has redrafted the definition of a true gentleman to bring the species into the 21st Century. The new rule book is more concerned with correct prejudices against fuchsia trousers than whether men vacate their seat for a female. Millennial Man, according to the magazine I find in the hospital waiting room, abhors cats, gladioli and Twitter and uses Facebook only to keep in touch with his 'many godchildren'. He suffers soporific theatre shows until the curtain falls and, crucially, only makes love on his elbows.

My grandmother, evidently, could sniff out gentlemanliness at first sight. I feel slightly betrayed. The Vicar, I'd thought, was a gentleman, but he owns two cats. I haven't tested his opinions on gladioli and he seldom wears trousers that aren't black, but he devotes whole evenings to Twitter and he is guaranteed to fall asleep before the interval of any performance.

I decide to consult the embodiment of 21st century priorities, my 12-year-old. A gentleman, she says, is someone who is rich. The 9-year-old, who is currently exploring the novelty of manly sensations, says he's someone who kisses women full on the lips. I ask the check-out lady at Waitrose while she weighs my bananas. She says she doesn't know, but would come home and cook me a curry if she could, so she's definitely a true gentleman.

The more I ponder it the more I realise that there's something wrong with Country Life's list. There may be a gent lurking in many suburban kitchens, but the domestic environment doesn't give blokes much scope to exhibit the requisite symptoms. How many family men get a night out at the theatre or the chance to acquire a taste for Malibu? How they can reliably avoid the corruption of biros when scrawling an emergency shopping list on the fridge door, or ensure they acquire the full quota of godchildren when junior football league occupies every Sunday?

Come morning, as the Vicar wakes me with the daily mug of Tetleys, I've decided to rescue the modern male, for my conviction is this: it's perfectly possible to be a gent, whatever your taste in trousers, so long as you don a pinnie and abide by these rules...

A true gentleman should:

Put his own underpants in the washing machine.

Quietly supplant you at children's supper time as peas and insults hurl across the table.

Empty the sludge at the bottom of the marital tooth mug.

Scrape the pan you've burnt the supper in and left for the last week to soak.

Overlook the matted blade on his best razor when you nick it to mow your legs.

Put on, unasked, the clean sheets that you've abandoned on the bed after stripping it.

Let you play The Monkees on the motorway when Any Questions is on.

What do you think makes for a gentleman?