20th March 2007
Rhiannon has a lovely new friend in her class, Natalie. Her mum is pretty wonderful too so I've invited them both for a playdate. Well, the kids will play while Yoko and I sit and gossip! They arrived about a month ago from London, although you can guess by her name that Yoko is Japanese and her husband is American.
But two other children were suddenly thrust upon me too... by the ever-imposing M. I have no idea on the niceties of how to refuse to allow kids to come and play, especially as they were with her when she asked, but in the interests of my daughter making friends, I reluctantly agreed. She just said "Can my two come to your place today?" I know I could say no, but I'm still finding my feet here so my mouth said "yes".
I collected Yoko and the four children from school in the car. It was a very tight squeeze and the arguing started even before we reached the bottom of the hill from school.
"You're squashing me", "Move over", "I don't WANT to sit on your lap..."
Arrived home with great relief and prised the children from the car and sent them off upstairs. Peace at last.
I made tea and Yoko and I settled down to get to know each other a bit better. Our first topic of conversation was, of course, how did the other two kids end up to be invited? Natalie is extremely shy and Yoko was hoping for a quiet playdate – as was I.
Yoko has been speaking to the various Japanese mums at school and was imparting some fascinating information received from them about how peculiar Maria is and how it would be best for most people's state of mind if they just kept away from her. This I was beginning to understand; she has a way of making one feel inadequate, angry and sympathetic all at the same time.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
Puzzled, I got up to answer it. We don't really get callers here unless it's the postman and it was far too late for him.
Ohmigod! It was M in the flesh! Not only had she invited the children, she'd invited herself!
She was obviously taken aback to see Yoko and a flash of offended jealousy went across her face. Hmmm.
Reading between the lines, she didn't trust me not to let her children watch "uneducational TV" and needed to ensure Rhiannon played nicely. Grrrr.
Needless to say the playdate wasn't a great success for us adults. And one of M's children broke something very precious of Rhiannon's. But of course, M wasn't going to believe that for one minute so luckily for us all, the date was cut short.
I will not be inviting them back again anytime soon.
But I will be seeing Yoko and Natalie as much as possible.
