In the trenches with Thames Water

We've known it’s going to happen for a while, but we’ve been in denial. And no, I’m not talking about Littleboy 2 hitting the terrible twos (although, all the evidence suggests that he has).

Every week over the past few months the ominous signs have come closer, encroaching onto our neighbouring streets. There were diggers, men in fluorescent jackets with clipboards and white vans. Finally, sinister chalk marks appeared on our pavement and we knew the day of reckoning was upon us.

Yes, Thames Water are digging up our road.

Anyone who lives in London will know what I’m talking about, as it is happening all over the capital. They are replacing London’s Victorian water mains with new pipes (These appear to be made of bright blue plastic; The Doctor says he is sceptical that they are going to last another hundred years.)

Now if you’d told me four years ago I’d be bothered about this, or indeed writing a blog about it, I would probably have laughed in your face. Back then, parking outside our house was not an issue as we hardly ever drove.

But today, this equals a huge disruption to our daily lives. The whole of our side of the street is now basically a trench; parking has been suspended and we can’t bring the car anywhere near the house. This makes the three day a week nursery run something of a challenge. Getting the two Littleboys in and out of the car along with their various bags, coats and the selected toys that have to come with us is tricky enough as it is, without the added fun of having to trek to the car along a narrow muddy corridor and negotiate crossing roads with them.

Our road is quite small, and naturally all the nearest parking spaces have been nabbed by people who never, ever have to move their cars, so finding a spot anywhere convenient is impossible. This situation is set to carry on for the next month – after which, the Men cheerfully informed me, they will dig up the other side of the road.

On the plus side, the gang of workmen employed to dig the trenches have provided some diversions. The Littleboys have spent many a happy hour staring out of the windows at the mechanical digger and love to say hello to the workmen and inspect the equipment (far more exciting than their own plastic tractor collection) as we go by.

Even I have had my entertainment. One morning, a jet of water shot up into the air about 20 feet high, directly outside our house. This was obviously not part of the plan. Two men were furiously scrabbling around in the muddy trench with their bare hands trying to put the lid back on the source of this fountain, and there was much shouting and swearing.

A little concerned that we were about to lose our water supply, I shot out there and enquired: “Er…everything OK?”

“Don’t you worry darling,” they said. “Thames Water are coming out to sort it.”

Well, that’s a relief then.

Not berry amusing

So there we were in the supermarket this morning, supposedly sharing a delightful family shopping expedition before heading off to the playground in the autumn sunshine.

Recently, Littleboy 1 has been allowed to walk around in the supermarket; he is a) really too big for the trolley, b) highly likely to fight with Littleboy 2 if sitting in a ‘2 seater’ trolley and c) at three and a half could, we thought, be trusted not to cause too much damage in the aisles.

To keep him entertained, I let him help to pick out the food, name it and put it into the trolley. I once read in some book on fussy eating that one should encourage them to take as much interest in food as possible, to get them used to the idea of different ingredients. I was impressed that he knew broccoli (God knows he’ll never eat it, but it’s a start) and he was most excited at being allowed to pick out a pumpkin (result: we are having roasted pumpkin tonight. Mmm). It worked well at first. OK, he did throw a mini-tantrum at not being allowed to put ‘red milk’ in the trolley (skimmed seemed unnecessary in addition to the 16 pints a week of full fat and semi-skimmed we seem to get through anyway) but all was fairly harmonious until we reached the fruit aisle.

Littleboy 1 insisted that we buy blackberries (inspired by a recent country walk on which he virtually ate his weight in juicy berries) so I gave him the punnet to hold. Whereupon he hurled it, with great force, into the trolley. Blackberries exploded all over the floor, the trolley and the copy of FT Weekend that the Doctor had meaningfully placed there (ominously lying in wait to tell us about the horrors of this week and how stupid we were, along with half the world and his wife, to have an Icesave ISA.) Both the Littleboys roared with laughter.

The Doctor was uncharacteristically furious – whether because of the laughter, the reckless throwing of soft fruit, the wastage of horrendously overpriced blackberries, because everything was covered in sticky black juice or because his precious copy of the FT was soiled, I am not entirely sure. Anyway, Littleboy 1 got a real dressing down from both of us – cue surprised stares from all the other parents shopping nearby. We then had a rather bad-tempered debate over whether we should own up and pay for the berries and newspaper, or go and get replacements and leave the soiled ones surreptitiously at the checkout? (Reader, we left them at the checkout.)

Well, it’s been a strange old week all round, quite frankly. Perhaps blackberries exploding on the FT in Waitrose are a metaphor…..

In the brand garden

A local friend once lamented that what Nappy Valley lacks is a really good quality children’s clothes shop. At which I was puzzled, because surely there are plenty? Apart from the branches of Asda and Primark that I myself frequent, there is JoJo Maman Bebe on the Northcote road, or numerous little boutiquey places where you could easily spend a month’s salary on a woollen hat and gloves combo.

Then I realised; my friend has two girls. And little girls actually care about what they wear. The Littleboys, like most men, are indifferent to fashion. They might occasionally have a yen for a particular colour, but mainly, clothes for them are about keeping warm and spilling food on. And putting them on in the morning is often the last thing they want to do; much more exciting to carry on building a Lego castle, watching Lazytown or throwing Shreddies around the kitchen. They have to be bribed and cajoled into putting on their clothing (the threat of ‘well, if you don’t want to get dressed, we won’t be able to go to the park’ usually does the trick.) Only this morning, Littleboy 1 ran into the kitchen stark naked at 9am and confronted the Ocado man with a cry of 'What are you doing, Man?

But then I discovered the scary power of branding. And guess what? If it’s a Bob the Builder jacket, or a Mr Men shirt, whaddya know? They want to wear it.

I was initially loathed, however, to go too far down this route. Although I’m not one of those mothers who dresses up little boys in old-fashioned brogues and stripy shirts like mini country squires (although I do have a weakness for stripy pyjamas from The Little White Company), I don’t want to see them kitted out in branded gear all the time.

And then the Doctor’s cousin, H, got a new job. When we first heard where, we couldn’t actually believe it. He is a product designer, and has worked at numerous cosmetics-type places over the years including The Body Shop and Revlon. But now…well, he managed to wangle himself a job at the BBC working on In the Night Garden. (Expat mummies, if you don’t know what this is, get yourself over here, and watch in wonder at the weirdness).

It sounds either like a dream job or the job from hell, (depending on how much Iggle Piggle you can take). For ‘research’, he walks around toy shops or watches episodes of ITNG. He got to meet the famed creator of ITNG and Teletubbies, Andrew Davenport. I imagine there are a few editorial meetings he has to attend regarding plot and character development. But how difficult can this be, considering that 95% of the show is the same every day? I mean it’s not going to be, OK this is ‘the one where Makka Pakka sleeps with Upsy Daisy because she and Iggle Piggle were on a break’, is it? Or ‘let’s have the Pinky Ponk crash, leaving the characters on a desert island inhabited by polar bears?’

In fact, Cousin H takes it all very seriously. The last time we met, he accosted me with a copy of Charlie and Lola magazine and started quizzing me about the Littleboys’ favourite TV programmes. (This seemed particularly surreal coming from a 35 year old single guy-about-town who has no kids and previously used to devote himself to Arsenal matches.)

But best of all, he gets access to all the gear. Last time he came to supper, he turned up with a great armful of Makka Pakka sweatshirts and Iggle Piggle tops. The Littleboys, who are big fans of ITNG, were delighted.

So getting them dressed when they are not in the mood for it is no longer a chore. If I ask them what they want to wear, they think for a minute and then declare ‘Pakka!’. Not only that, but they attract attention from other kids in the playground, who take delight in pointing out the characters. Instant popularity.

So I might just have to give in to the power of branding….and meanwhile Cousin H will be getting plenty more supper invitations.

Crunch-y living

Stock markets are in turmoil all over the world, Wall St crashes and burns, and we all appear to be drowning in a sea of debt. Here in Nappy Valley, the ripples are being felt.

I am queuing up with the Littleboys for our usual – a latte and two apple juice cartons - at one of the local park cafes, when the following scene occurs:

The middle-class looking woman in front of me in the queue is buying breakfast for her brood of children, when suddenly all hell breaks loose. “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe,” she thunders, “that you are charging FIVE POUNDS for scrambled egg and toast. I simply cannot believe it.” She puts down her tray, and storms out, leaving the Italian waiter blinking in astonishment.

Now, my friends and I have often moaned about the extortionate prices charged in this, and other, local cafes – those with a captive audience of mothers with hungry children in pushchairs seem particularly good at it. But NEVER before have I seen anyone actually complain.

Clearly, the tide is turning. Later, in the playground, I meet one of the mums from our erstwhile toddler music class, Rabbit Rhymes (from which we were ‘constructively dismissed’, as I described here) in the playground. The class we attended used to be so popular that it had a waiting list; according to her, it is now so empty that her son has had to be reassigned to another one.

So it got me thinking (apologies if I sound like Carrie Bradshaw here); perhaps we have been living through a rarefied age here in middle-class London, over the last few years, the likes of which we will not see again. An age where people are prepared to pay over £70 a term for crappy half-hour toddler music classes; an age where £500 for a buggy is the norm; where you happily part with a quid for a babycino (a tiny cup of frothy milk with chocolate sprinkles); where parents spend hundreds of pounds on cutesy kiddy clothing that their children will soon grow out of. Where tired parents in need of a little R&R book weekends in boutique country house hotels; where taking several holidays a year is a right, not a privilege; where a bog-standard house in a fairly grotty part of south London can cost over a million pounds.

And I’m not just talking about rich bankers’ families; wealth is infectious, and some of the least rich people I know have spent ludicrous money on luxurious but unnecessary items. We have all been living in a bubble of prosperity, fuelled by City salaries, ridiculous house prices and crazy mortgages. And the backlash begins here; five quid for scrambled egg on toast.

I don’t want to be flippant in any way about the credit crunch (who knows where it will end? and is anyone safe?) but I do wonder this; will we look back at this era in a decade’s time, and think, how mad was that?

Back in the saddle

“Two bikes!” shouted Littleboy 1 excitedly when he came home from nursery the other day. He was right – my own is now in the hallway leaning up next to The Doctor’s. It is a momentous occasion in the household: the bike, virtually unridden since Littleboy 1 was born, has been resurrected from the cellar and Mummy is cycling to work.

The Littleboys are used to seeing their father donning his yellow jacket and helmet and going off to work on his bike. (In fact, although I have tried to explain to Littleboy 1 recently that Daddy works in a hospital, I have a sneaking suspicion that he thinks The Doctor just rides around on his bike all day….)

But now Mummy has rejoined the cycling fraternity, this time with oh-so-sexy nylon leggings and fluorescent gilet that makes her look like a cycle courier. A few Nappy Valley mothers have looked at me askance when I mentioned that I was cycling up to London Bridge twice a week – is this a responsible thing for a thirtysomething mother of two to be doing?

Well, these are my reasons. Two days a week I work in an office, and this involves a commute up the dreaded Northern Line. Our local Underground station must be one of the worst in London at this time of day. There are many stations before it, and no interchange to another line till the station after it. The train is therefore so rammed by the time it gets there that, especially if you leave after the witching hour of 8am, you may have to wait for several packed trains to go by before you can even squeeze yourself in under somebody’s sweaty armpit. (All the smug people from further down the line meanwhile carry on reading their papers with arms outstretched; well, I guess they're thinking that living in Tooting or Morden must have some compensations).

The second reason is fitness. A year ago, the Doctor and I chucked in our gym memberships. With two children, we hardly ever went, so were effectively paying £70 a month for about one hour’s swim. In the past, I’ve been lucky and never had to worry too much about my weight, but two pregnancies and lack of exercise has meant that recently I’ve been feeling less than svelte, and I refuse to resign myself to chucking away an entire wardrobe full of size 10 clothes. I hate running, and my weekly yoga classes, while relaxing, are not exactly a calorie burner. In contrast, The Doctor’s long cycle rides were keeping him trim.

So cycling is good for both the sanity and the waistline, not to mention the environment. Plus, I don’t get sucked into reading the trashy free evening papers on the Tube coming home. (This is a good thing; at one point, I felt I could have entered Mastermind on the specialist subject of the antics of Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen). But what about the danger? I am a nervous cyclist at the best of times, so The Doctor has ingeniously worked out a route for me that involves few main roads and avoids the horrors of the Elephant & Castle roundabout-from-hell. I have managed to customise this route further by including a couple of pedestrian crossings that I can use, which means I never have to turn right off a main road, or negotiate a major junction.

So I am no gung-ho London cyclist, and I'm sure I don't get to my destination as quickly as I could if I simply ploughed up the A3 pedalling like Chris Hoy. However, the twists and turns of my little journey mean I get to see glorious little London parks and squares all at their sleepy, early morning best. But best of all, when I arrive at my office (where there is helpfully a nice hot shower), I can tuck into my pain au chocolat and steaming latte with guilt-free gusto.

Open season

I have posted before about the excitement that surrounds schooling in Nappy Valley, explaining how, because we look set to escape to the US next year, I have been rather immune to the stress and bother of worrying about schools for Littleboy 1.

That’s still true, but in the back of my mind was a little niggling concern about having no back up plan – particularly as school Open Day season arrives and friends' children start to go off to 'interviews' and the like. I started to wonder what would happen if it all fell through, and we don’t go abroad. Having failed to move house to be nearer to good state primaries, we would potentially be resigned to sending Littleboy 1 to our nearest school (a place whose Ofsted report is not, shall we say, exactly glowing.) So I decided on a whim to send off for the application form of a local private school - one of the few that doesn’t require you to sign up while they’re still a foetus.

The form itself is a fairly straightforward, until it comes to the section in which you’re asked to describe your child’s ‘hobbies…interests….musical instruments played and grades achieved’.

Littleboy 1 is 3 and a quarter. How, I asked The Doctor, do we describe the hobbies of a 3 year old?“Hitting his little brother over the head?” he helpfully suggests. “Riding his scooter like a maniac around Clapham Common?”

Reading the prospectus through, we ascertain that not only is the school academically selective, but it receives at least 10 applications for each place. What, then, would make him stand out? We begin fantasising about what we could write on the form…. “Littleboy 1 is familiar with the early sonatas of Beethoven, although has not quite grasped the complexities of the later works.” “He has recently shown a strong interest in the Large Hadron Collider”. “His prowess at building Lego towers suggests a future Norman Foster....”.

In the end we decide that I should go along to the Open Day in order to decide whether this was really for us. We thought it best not to take the Littleboys (knowing they would just run around screaming) so instead, The Doctor took them to the park while I went along by myself. However, as I followed the considerable crowd to the school gate, it quickly dawned on me that I was the ONLY parent to have pitched up alone. Everyone else was there en famille, many with small babies in prams, as well as the toddlers angling for next year’s entry (who were no doubt already on Grade 4 violin). As a result, the place was mayhem – when the Head Teacher gave a talk, you could hardly hear a word above the din of small children wailing.

After that, I walked around alone like Mrs No-Mates, tagging along on other people's guided tours and feeling as if everyone else was staring and wondering where my children and partner were. (There's something about schools that makes me nervous, as if you might get sent to stand outside the Head's office if you say the wrong thing.)

I wanted to buttonhole a teacher and ask about the ‘hobbies’, but other parents kept getting in there before me. “How much do they use computers?” asked one woman fiercely. “Because I really, really don’t approve of children in junior school using computers all the time.” (The teacher’s eyes flickered warily to the two large Apple Macs in the corner before she fudged the answer diplomatically). Another Dad wanted to know why some parents chose to send their kids at 4 and others and 7. What was the reasoning behind such a decision? (Hmm, could it be something to do with the fees? I was wondering).

Afterwards, I went to join The Doctor and Littleboys in the park. What was my verdict? he asked. “Lovely school, nice pupils,” I said: “But not sure I could put up with the other parents...”

The form is still sitting on my desk......

Parklife

The September sun has finally returned to Nappy Valley, so it's time for us to revisit our favourite pastime - hanging out in the local parks.

Friends who don’t live in London often express sympathy for us during the summer, thinking that we don’t get a chance to go out and enjoy the greenery. But in fact the opposite is true. We live within striking distance of no less than two Commons and three parks. All of these are within walking distance or involve a 10 minute drive. Having two energetic Littleboys and a tiny paved backyard, on a typical day at home with them we can cram in two parks (although, as another friend with two small kids once said to me, a three park day means things are really getting bad at home).

Luckily for us, each park has its own character, and its own particular clientele. So not only can you choose a parkscape to suit your mood or how energetic you are feeling; you can also morph into the surroundings and fit in with the prevailing tribe. (Hmm, do I feel like a Yummy Mummy today? Or is it a jeans, fleece and unwashed hair day?)

Here's the lowdown on a few of them:

Clapham Common

Our nearest, and our most regular haunt. I am a big fan of the Common. It might be encircled by the A3; it might have a reputation as a gay cruising ground by night; and it might get horribly crowded at weekends. But during the week it’s relatively empty, has two good playgrounds, lots of green space, a beautifully restored bandstand that makes a perfect scootering ramp for kids. As well as the Bugaboo brigade, and a fair number of yummy mummies with their Boden-clad kids, you get all the local dogwalkers and the ordinary folk of Clapham going about their business.

Typical kids' names called out in playground: Harry, Mia

Typical pram: Phil & Teds

Conversation topic: House prices in Abbeville road

Coffee: Good Italian stuff at the bandstand café, which also (if you’re feeling more daring or have had enough of your screaming kids) serves prosecco.

Dress code: Anything goes, but jeans and fleece are fine.

Brockwell Park

This has an edgier and multicultural vibe, probably down to its proximity to Brixton, but is all the more refreshing for it. Even the middle-class crowd definitely look more bohemian. I've seen Dads sit smoking joints on the edge of the playground or, at weekends, young couples sitting swigging bottles of wine while their children play on the swings – things that would definitely be a no-no in other local parks, but somehow here it's OK. Somehow, even the ducks look a bit cooler here. And it's beautiful, with a fabulous vista over London.

Typical kids’ names: Noah or Ariel

Typical pram: Maclaren

Conversation topic: the local veggie cafe or latest arthouse film at the Brixton Ritzy

Coffee: Disappointly watery stuff at stunningly located cafe in old manor house.

Dress code: Hoodies and trainers / flowing ethnic tops, berets and ponchos

Wandsworth Common

Home to black Labradors, green wellies and Cath Kidston bags, Wandsworth Common really is the one to march around pretending you’re in Gloucestershire. Not only that, but it has a railway cutting through the middle for little boys who like trains. If you get bored, you can pop down to Bellevue Road and blow several months’ salaries at the boutiques or a meal at Chez Bruce.

Typical kids’ names: Hugo or Isabella

Typical pram: Bugaboo Bee

Conversation topic: Cornish beaches; Mark Warner

Coffee: have it with yummy cake at Common Ground- but you’ll fight to get a table inside in the winter.

Dress code: rugby shirts, Boden, green wellies.

This is what I love about London. You can choose who you want to be, even if it's just for a few hours. And best of all, you can people-watch and then write scurrilous blogs about it....