CAN I BORROW YOUR PANTS?

I've been working from home for years and weirdo clients have been thankfully few and far between. I teach one-on-one, so I use very sensitive antenna before I shut myself in with a client. I've weeded out a couple of what I call 'shivery' males before they've made it through the door and one lady who, bless her, just bored me so much I decided I'd rather not have the money.
But recently I had one who was so outrageous that she made me stand stock still for a good thirty seconds with my mouth hanging open and no sound coming out. Twice.
I have engineered my working life so I am in the canny position of being able to see my clients arrive. This means no time is wasted - which as many of you will know, I can't bear. It's the reason I'm always late everywhere; if there are two minutes spare before I'm due to pick up the children I genuinely think I can just nip to the post office and get my mailing done on the way. Rather be late, than be one of those mothers who arrives at school twenty minutes early and sits in the car doing nothing to make sure they can park as close to the school gate as possible. How do they have time for this? And if they have so much time on their hands, why the bloody hell don't they walk all the way there and leave the car spaces for people like me who have no time at all? I suspect the irony is lost on them. Mind you, they are probably just as baffled by me as, day after day, I arrive as they leave, flying in to the school yard looking like I've just got up, hair on upside down, car parked four miles away because I'm last and all the good places are taken.
So the best thing for me about working from home is that no time is wasted. I am washing up until the split second a client pulls into my drive. And if they are late, I no longer sit checking for split ends, swinging my legs in a studio somewhere with nothing to do but wait. I clean the bathroom, load the washing machine, do a bit of light weeding - any number of little chores can fill the time. I used to get mad as hell when I drove for half an hour, sat in a studio for twenty minutes, had a 'no-show' from someone and then drove half an hour home again, gnashing teeth, time completely wasted, to take it out on the children.
The other day, I was clearing the breakfast table when this particular client - I'll call her Lottie - arrived. She got out of her car and I went to my studio door to greet her - but there was no sign of her. I went back to peer through the kitchen window and sure enough, her now empty car was parked in the driveway. As I watched, puzzled, she emerged from behind my garage, clutching something and headed for the studio door.
I let her in and our session began. 'Actually,' she said apologetically, moments later. 'Would you mind if I just used your loo?' A few minutes later she was back. A little longer than the average tinkle perhaps but nothing remarkable. About half an hour later, she suddenly blurted out, 'I'm sorry. Would you mind if I had a shower?' My jaw dropped for the first time. She explained that she had a urine infection (Sorry. If you're of weak disposition, look away now. It gets worse). She was late arriving at my house because she'd been 'trying to go', but the pain was stopping her. When she arrived she was so desperate, she'd nipped behind the garage but by this time she had 'let some go' (her words) so had taken off her wet knickers and washed them in my sink. Where I clean my teeth. And hung them up in my bathroom to dry.
'But I still feel a bit....you know....between the legs,' she said. 'I think I'd feel much better if I had a shower.' I was so gobsmacked I nodded weakly and off she went.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not without sympathy for the poor woman. I just think that if the problem is that bad, you cancel, no? Off she went for her shower and I pottered about. Polished a mirror. Dusted a couple of shelves. Wondered if she would want to carry on after her shower or if she'd need......surely not....oh dear God surely not.....
Lottie stuck her head around the shower room door. This is a client. I barely know her.
'I don't suppose I could borrow a pair of your knickers, could I? Only I'm going on somewhere straight after this and I wouldn't really feel comfortable going without underwear.'
My mouth fell open for the second time. Not metaphorically. I stared at her, with not the faintest idea of what to say. I actually can't remember what I did say. I think I babbled some load of old rubbish and then walked away.
I waited in the studio until she came out, smelling of my shower gel, hair washed, smiled like a cabbage patch doll at whatever she said next and waved her off with the same fixed grin.
And then I texted her saying I thought it might be best if she found another teacher.

THE FOX ISN'T CUNNING, HE'S CHICKEN

My luck has run out and I am heartbroken.
For years, friends have marvelled at the way my lovely, funny hens roam willy nilly all over my garden and the fields behind and (I’ve just discovered) my neighbour’s flower bed, without the local foxes catching on. Everyone else's get eaten regularly but mine just seem to bumble on.
Every now and then, someone pulls into the drive saying, ‘Sorry to bother you, but are those your hens wandering down the road?’ I go out and call them and they come running back to me, bowling along as fast as their fluffy little legs will carry them, clucking around my ankles for flapjack or whatever else today’s treat may be.
The kids pick them up and carry them around, chatting to them and stroking them. They love collecting their little eggs and working out how many Bantie eggs makes ‘three medium’ in a cake. When we have barbecues, they cluster around our feet hoping we’ll drop tasty bits of sausage, bread or steak (not chicken, obviously. Unless you’re my mum who can’t see why not).
For the last two years we’ve let the broody ones sit, so at least four of our hens have hatched here. The children have heard the tiny peeping sounds inside the eggs and watched as the bedraggled creature struggles out, fluffs up and becomes a chick within minutes. We’ve even done that thing of reviving them in a bed made of a hat stuffed with a tea towel on the Aga when the mother rejected them.
Sometimes they’re left alone for a bit while I work and as soon as I get home they come straight to me, half-flying, half-running in their haste to get to me. (They’re not great at either, so a combination of running, jumping and flapping seems to work best). I sit on the garden step and tell them what I’ve been up to. One of them hops onto my knee and the others just hang about and listen.
My dog sunbathes happily on the lawn while they forage around him. Even my naughty kitten, who used to love chasing them all over the place till we came charging out of the house, adding our shrieking to their squawking, soon learnt somehow that they are different to other birds and he is not allowed to eat them.
The only problems I’ve ever had have been with dogs. Once a friend arrived, opened her car boot, her Jack Russell shot out and before we even blinked, he had the rooster, Dom, between his teeth.
I lost my second cockerel when a neighbour’s dogs escaped from their garden and came as a pack to hunt hens. Brave little Bolly tried to fight the Alsatians but he never stood a chance.
It’s always the roosters that go first. When an attack begins, the girls scatter and hide and the plucky, beautiful cockerel runs towards the source of danger to defend his girls. He has no tools for the job and it’s heartbreaking.
This time of year is always tricky because a) the foxes are breeding and b) chickens go to bed at dusk. In the winter dusk is about 4.30pm, when there are still loads of noisy people around. But in June, there are three options.
1 – don’t go out till after dusk which right now is about 9.45pm
2 – chase the chickens to bed before you go which takes about three hours.......
3 – risk leaving them out and shut the coop when you get home.
Not long ago I was away for the weekend and a friend was house-sitting for me. On the Saturday night he found himself with exactly this problem and, bless him, he spent hours trying to shepherd my flock into their coop long before they wanted to go.
I laughed my head off when this eminent psychiatrist described running like a Neanderthal around the garden, arms trailing on the lawn, clucking like a mother hen himself, until they were all safely tucked in.
But I’m not laughing any more. I had the same problem myself last night and, instead of chivvying my beautiful hens into an early bed, I left them out in the sunshine.
In the early, dark hours of the morning, I came back to batten down the hatches, peeping in as I always do for a quick head count, to make sure no-one’s missing. The coop was empty.
I searched the garden with a torch and a lump in my throat. Like I said, chickens go to bed at dusk. Without fail. They’re not like the cat, now a naughty teenager who, given half a chance, will stay out on the tiles all night and rock up with the milk in the morning, yawning and demanding food before crashing out on the sofa for the day.
I knew they weren’t just somewhere else. I cried when eventually I found two of the chooks playing dead, one on a garden chair and one in a flower pot. I cried as I put them back gently into the feather-filled coop they had quite clearly run from. And I cried when in daylight this morning I saw the amount of feathers covering the garden and the field. The black feathers in the garden showed where, once again, my valiant rooster, Frizzle, had tried to protect his girls.
Friends have marvelled at my lovely hens, because they thought the fox hadn’t twigged they were there. Now I think the bastard, cowardly fox had known all along, but there’s always lots of people and noise at our house, not to mention the dog. I think he waited for the one occasion when there was no-one to hear, no-one to stop him and then he just went in unchallenged. The dog must have been going mad, locked in the house.
I feel terrible. I don’t know how to protect the two that are left without shutting them in all day. Because I know he’ll back.
And I feel so guilty. I'm so sorry. I should have made sure they were safe before I went out, but I was in a rush as always and I didn’t have time.
And soon my children will be back from school and I will have to tell them. I don't deserve it but wish me luck......

JUMPING (CAREFULLY) ON THE HEALTH AND SAFETY BANDWAGON

The Health and Safety police have stopped me cleaning, made me sit in a room for an hour doing nothing and forced me to throw perfectly good food in the bin and I can’t take it any more.
I know there have been whole rain forests of rants written about the pettiness of certain aspects of health and safety regulation but I’m afraid I’m going to jump on the bandwagon (not while it’s moving , obviously, that could be dangerous and I haven’t done the course in how to jump on moving bandwagons).
For a couple of years now I’ve been cooking lunch at our little village school following a campaign to make hot food available again for primary age children, something I think is really important.
When I was at primary school I had either cooked lunch in school where I regularly got told off by Mr Yeldham for pouring the custard from a height of three feet (seriously dangerous) or trotted home (by myself, aaaaahh!) where mum boiled me an egg with soldiers and I loved it.
And as a mum myself I’ve often felt that a couple of sandwiches and an apple weren’t enough to get my little ones through a six hour day in the middle of winter.
So when I was offered the opportunity to help get this programme of hot food in primary schools off the ground, I grabbed it – and largely I’ve loved it. I know for some of the kids, school lunch is the only decent food they get all day. And I adore the children.
Not long ago, one particular little lad, age six, came to me at the end of service and said, hands on hips, deadly serious, ‘Can I tell you something?’ ‘Of course you can.’ I said.
‘You are the best chef in the whole world,’ he said. ‘I’d die for you.’
I persuaded the same little fella to try melon one day, something he’d never had. He struggled valiantly for a while and when all the other kids had left the dining room, I went and sat with him and said, ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?’
‘I like the top,’ he said. ‘But I don’t really like the bottom.’ I explained it was ok to leave the skin and gave him a sticker for trying something new.
There are five- year- old twins who will go to any lengths to hide the abandoned contents of their lunch boxes to be allowed some of my food; we’ve found tangerines stuffed inside the radiator, sandwiches in their skirts and muesli bars in their socks.
I’ve been there for the birthdays, new kids, blossoming (and failing) little romances, best friends and falling-outs, even parents dying. I will miss their little faces, lopsided compliments and funny comments terribly.
When I started, mine was about the ninth school in the programme and the company I worked for was also relatively new to this particular market. My opinion and experiences were relevant and common sense was expected. Now it is not even allowed.
I know that for any company these days, health and safety is important – and nowhere moreso than in catering. But I am not allowed to clean the top of my fridge because I haven’t done a course in Using a Step Ladder. So it stays dirty. Where’s the sense in that?
And God forbid the children should pour their own custard, from any height. What if they spilt it and then slipped on it (of which more later...)?
If I have fifteen children eating lunch, I must put fifteen chocolate muffins in bowls (unwrapped) with a handful of blueberries in each. Because that’s what it says on the menu. No matter that I’ve known half these kids since before they were born and I can tell you categorically that two of them won’t eat their muffins, three of them will be cajoled into trying a couple of blueberries and another six will tip the whole lot in the bin.
I accept that in this age of litigation, it is necessary to sign every line I write in my daily log book, (despite the fact that there’s mostly only me working there) in case the company needs to prove that it was me who tested the temperature of the fridge, accepted the delivery, or washed the floor.
But as more and more schools join the scheme the rules are getting more and more ridiculous.
I came close to leaving when they introduced the Daily Briefing. Occasionally on busy days, when I have a helper, we chat about how we’re going to split the tasks. ‘How about you serve the meat and I’ll do the veg?’ we say.
This is apparently no longer good enough. It doesn’t ‘cover us’. If a child complains they weren’t given sweetcorn, it is important that you can pin down who is responsible.
So now I have to summon my helper to the Daily Briefing. We record in the log book what time it starts. We say ‘How about you serve the meat and I’ll do the veg?’ Then I have to write in the log book what I said and at what time, and then I sign it. Then she has to agree that she has been briefed and also sign the book. And date it. And put the time next to it.
But I realised I was finished when one of the area bosses came down to teach me about the Spill Box.
I must now place on my windowsill every morning a bin liner, into which I must carefully place a pair of gloves from the glove cupboard and a piece of kitchen roll. If I spill anything, this procedure must be followed: I must go to the Spill Box, pull on the gloves, take out the piece of tissue (not a different piece, mind), and wipe up the spill. I must then dispose of the gloves and the tissue, record the entire incident in my log book and replenish the Spill Box.
‘Phew,’ I said, when they finished instructing me. ‘Thank goodness for that. For two years I’ve had no idea what to do if a bit of custard fell to the floor. I’ve just been falling flat on my face. Now I will be able safely to clean it up.’
I think I’ve jumped just before I was pushed.......