Lack of Tallulah

It is very quiet here this morning.

That is because Tallulah has gone on a sleepover with her best friend, Mary.

You would not think that the subtraction of one child from the domestic equation would make much difference when you have three of them, but I can confirm that it is has been spectacularly quiet while she has been away.

This may be down to the fact that there has been very little singing to speak of, something I am grateful for. I love Tallulah’s singing teacher. She is a darling and a poppet and all things that are good. She has the voice of an angel and is incredibly kind and nice. Tallulah flourishes under her care like a sickly rose given the tender ministrations of Percy Thrower. All that aside however, she does pick ghastly songs which Tallulah is required to learn, and practice and practice and practice until I want to shut my head in the fridge door repeatedly. The latest of these is the classic Sir Clifford of Rich popular music number – From a Distance…

If only…

It is almost as terrible as the woman who yesterday ruined my entire shopping expedition by persistently playing The Birdy Song on the accordion at the top of the local high street. The death penalty is not too strong an ask here I think, and Twitter, it seems, wholeheartedly agrees with me. Make it so.

By the time I see Tallulah this afternoon, she will have finished her cycling proficiency programme. She missed one part, due to adverse weather conditions, and had to stay behind after school yesterday to make up the bits that were missing. I am glad that it is finally over. I am also feeling doom laden about it all. Firstly, I will have to wrestle her bike into my VW Polo again. If ever there were an argument against one parent families it is this. They say it takes a village to raise a child. I am telling you that it takes at least two people of adult proportions, both of whom love each other enough not to want to punch each other in the throat when it all goes wrong for the third time, to get a decent sized bicycle into the back of a Polo. I shall be attempting it solo at about 3.30 p.m. this afternoon. Please come down and mock if you’ve nothing better to do. It will brighten your evening.

The other thing I worry about is the fact that Tallulah is now convinced she is Bradley Wiggins. She has been asking me if the fact that she will shortly be qualified as proficient, means that she will be able to cycle to school in September.

The mere thought of this makes me feel sick. Between us and the school is one of the busiest roads in the city. I have never known it not be insane. Add this to the fact that Tallulah is convinced that a) she is the owner of the yellow jersey and b) she is immortal, is a recipe for sure and certain disaster and at least one trip to A&E. We are in negotiations as far as she is concerned. As far as I am concerned, hell will freeze over.

I am looking forward to Tallulah recounting her and Mary’s activities later on. She and Mary are obsessed by having midnight feasts. This is normal as far as I’m concerned. Everyone who hasn’t at one point in their life, been obsessed by a midnight feast and the having thereof, is an alien. Tallulah and Mary however, choose the oddest things to eat when they are executing the feasting. I am curious as to how they go about the selection process. Apparently, last time they got together they had kiwi fruit and cream crackers. This does not seem ideal to me. Crackers are very cracky, and leave tell tale crumbs, which is bad if you are hoping not to be found out and hung up by your boot straps for trashing your bed. Kiwi fruit, I think, are probably the most unlikely thing one could ever choose to eat on a midnight feast for many reasons, not least of which is that they are impenetrable without some kind of peeling/scooping instrument, and they are usually rather juice laden. Apart from that, Tallulah hates fruit with a passion hotter than a thousand suns. She will, if forced at knife point, eat a banana, but will choose olives every time over actual fruit based products. She even despises fruit flavoured things and shuns stuff like jelly and jam.

What will they have eaten, I wonder? I hope they learn by my mistakes. I once decided to have my own, secret midnight feast at home (inspired by Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers). I made myself a cheese sandwich and put it under my pillow. I went to sleep, forgot to wake up, and upon waking, forgot I had even planned a midnight feast in the first place. When I got home from school I was confronted by my very angry mother showing me two pillow cases stuck together with cheese and melted butter due to the fact that not only had I forgotten to eat the evidence, I had not thought to wrap the sandwich before I hid it under the pillows.

Imagine the mess had I chosen a Kiwi fruit instead of a sandwich.