Tuesday 30 October 2007

Last Minute Panics

My children are at boarding school.
It works for us - they have fun with their friends
and they know that we are safely tucked up in a home.

It is like respite care for parents of teenagers.

These are the things that they said to me
before we went back to school on Sunday:

MissM
Don't let me forget my flute
MasterM
I can't find any socks
MissM
I can't find any underwear
MasterM
Please buy me lots of bacon and cheese...
MissM
Please sew up my gloves and send them to me
MasterM
....And sausages and chocolate biscuits and tomato ketchup
MissM
I have taken your shampoo
MasterM
I have taken your toothpaste
MissM
Could you take my library books back
MasterM
I forgot my basketball boots. Can you send them?
MissM
I forgot my flute

Enid Blyton didn't mention any of this in Malory Towers.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

It happens everyday here at Willow House!

blackbird said...

It's just the same here - I ferry them off to school and over the course of hours I get phone calls or find things they've left behind.

Was it hard to let them go when they first went? I'm never letting Youngest go anywhere. He's never leaving me.

Anonymous said...

Wait for university load ups. I recently had an interesting culinary conversation with a lady in a well known local supermarket on the merits of tinned coconut milk as compared with the solid block. Her very full trolley had significant ingredients for Thai cookery, hence the conversation. It turned out that the whole trolleyful was destined to keep her daughter (who only just looked 18) in 'tuck' at university. I'm not sure whether it was for a week, a month, or the whole term.

RW said...

Do you actually send bacon and cheese to the school? Where do they keep it?

alice c said...

Welcome to ChezMagpie RW! Yes, bacon and cheese and sausages. They have a fridge and limited coooking facilities and as far as I can make out he cooks the bacon and the sausages and then melts the cheese on top and puts it between two slices of bread. We are not talking haute cuisine here. And I don't have to worry about the food going off because he eats it very quickly and then calls to tell me he is STARVING.

Anonymous said...

Ooh, you brought back distant memories of reading about the twins at St Clare's. I didn't go to boarding school but I did re-create the descriptions in the books of midnight feasts, getting up in the night (by myself) to fry sausages. It helped that my parents had a grocery store and we lived on the premises.

alice c said...

Welcome to ChezMagpie Liz! I am trying hard to imagine getting up at midnight to fry sausages but I'm not getting there. It is the thought of the smell lingering on your dressing gown. Ewwww....

tess said...

so do you need a courier for all these forgotten things, or can you send them with an owl like at hogwarts?

Unknown said...

I would have a hard time with my son gone. When he goes away to school I told him I wanted him at a school that is close to us...however, I am looking forward to him leaving home. Can't wait really, well sort of.

Anonymous said...

Lovely!

P

Anonymous said...

Tuck ?! These young people should count themselves lucky.

In my day we were reduced to shooting the local pigeons to supplement the rations ! Town pigeons do not make great cuisine as they live on a diet of chewing gum and other detritus. In case you think I am joking MasterM's godfather was the chef as he was best qualified (doing an A level in Biology and subsequently became a senior Army medic). I seem to remember eating pigeon breasts in a rather decent mustard sauce cooked on a rather decrepit gas ring which was next to a knackered snooker table in the basement.

When I were a lad ..... Nostalgia ain't wot it used to be. Never did me any harm.

Now then - pigeon breasts with cauliflower cheese would be quite something !

Anonymous said...

Back to work MrM otherwise you will get me started on nostalgia!
Did you have to endure sardines on fried bread for breakfast? We used to call it the miracle breakfast- one barley loaf and two small fishes.

Anonymous said...

gms - I clearly have not told you/bored you about the famous school spam fritter strike in deepest Lincolnshire during the 3 day week in the early '70s.

MasterM and MissM can give a pretty accurate verbatim account if needed.

Needless to say the strike was effective and spam fritters did not emerge from the school kitchen ever again. The pity was that I quite liked them on an occasion basis, even if they were like the rissoles depicted in "The Happiest Days of Their Lives".

Anonymous said...

We have a flock of about 30 pigeons living in/on our silo if MrM is interested!! :)He'd have to do the shooting and cooking of course....