Had a browse through the job section of the Dorset Echo. Slight panic about handing in notice.
Scandalous moments in Aldi – 1, but massive, so probably counts as at least 6.
An amazing thing happened to me today. Ian picked the girls up, as usual, from school, so after work I went to Aldi. I like looking at the special offers without Jess taking all the men’s thermal long johns out of their packets or demanding that I buy her a set of three barbecue tools.
I was contemplating a spiraliser and how switching carbs for courgettes would definitely make me a much better person, when I spotted a familiar face. She was wearing sunglasses and her usually coiffed hair was under a Disneyland Paris cap, but it was definitely Cassie.
I once overheard her at toddler group saying that she only ever shopped at Waitrose because she couldn’t bear to make a risotto without their truffle oil, so I was a bit surprised to see her looking with such interest at an £8.99 ladies summer blouse. I was even more surprised when I looked in her basket and saw a packet of wafer-thin ham and two family bags of cheese puffs.
I ducked behind the own-brand gin display and watched her make her way to the checkout, stopping on the way for Aldi’s own-brand Fruit Shoots.
I was beside myself!
I’d already taken my phone out to take a picture of her very presence in Aldi, so I was ready as she reached for the Fruit Shoot substitutes. The photo shows her glancing out cautiously from under her cap. It’s like the front cover of Now magazine – ‘playgroup stalwart falls out of nightclub at 3 a.m. with no underwear’.
I sent it to WIB.
‘What the fuck?’ said Sierra. ‘That’s incredible. This could blow Busy Beavers wide open. We should send this to the BB group.’
‘But they’d know it was us,’ said Lou. ‘I don’t want to be the troublemaker.’
‘Nah, we just get a burner phone,’ said Sierra, ‘like drug smugglers do in films. Then it will be an anonymous number and no one will be able to trace us.’
‘I think one of us would have to add the burner phone number to the group, though,’ I pointed out. ‘Anyway, we don’t need to expose her, we’re better than that. I’m just happy knowing about the photo.’
‘You are far too nice, Frankie,’ said Sierra.
We chickened out of Busy Beavers today and hung out at my house instead. Sierra had wanted to go in and confront Cassie, but I would rather not. There are some people who are oblivious to logical arguments – whatever you say to them, they are never going to be in the wrong so it’s just not worth it.
‘You know there’s only one session left next week, anyway?’ pointed out Lou. ‘And then it’s closed for the summer holidays.’
‘Seriously?’ I said. ‘Aren’t the summer holidays prime time for needing to hang out with other parents?’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ said Sierra. ‘Maybe we should invite everyone here instead, every Thursday? The nice ones anyway.’
‘Or,’ I said, glancing around at the piles of laundry and empty wine bottles, ‘we could not?’
‘Why don’t we do something at Chapter One?’ suggested Lou. ‘That upstairs room is lovely – would Dylan let us leave some toys there and meet up once a week, do you reckon?’
‘Amazing idea!’ said Sierra. ‘You ask him, Frankie, he’s your boyfriend.’
‘He is not my boyfriend!’ I protested. ‘I’ve only been there a few times. He’s a nice guy, that’s all, friendly.’
‘Sure, sure,’ said Sierra, ‘so ask him, then, if he’s so friendly.’
So I did. He was well up for it, especially when I said we’d be sure to let people know about the newly refurbished kids’ corner. We agreed we’d go to Busy Beavers for the last session next week and invite our favourite parents to our summer holiday club.
Spent a long time in bed wondering about Dylan. I hadn’t really thought about him like that, but he is quite cute in a slightly less attractive and more dishevelled ‘Hugh Grant in Notting Hill’ kind of way. Plus, he does own a bookshop – that’s got to be a big tick. But then there’s the whole ‘recently dead wife’ thing, which he’s clearly still coming to terms with. No one wants to try to fill the shoes of a much-loved dead wife, do they? Still, maybe one to file away.
Jess insisted on dressing herself this morning in tights and a wool dress, even though the forecast said twenty-four degrees. At 10 a.m. she came into the kitchen where I was washing the breakfast dishes, complaining about being too hot.
‘Why don’t we change you into something a bit cooler?’ I suggested, quite sensibly I thought.
‘No,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest and looking cross.
‘Well, maybe just take your tights off?’ I said. She glared at me and went off into the living room.
Five minutes later I looked up from the dishes to see her in the front garden, completely naked, squatting next to my tub of mint.
‘Jess,’ I shouted, scooping her up and bringing her back in, ‘you know you shouldn’t be out the front, plus you can’t just go running around outside naked!’
‘It’s OK, Mummy,’ she said, ‘I was walking.’