AT THE SCHOOL GATES

Is anything more daunting than the line up of women at the school gates? Especially when you’re feeling less than your best. Zooming in to scoop up children, trying to remember who you smile at and who you chat to, and those you ignore altogether. It’s oh so easy to offend. Is there a protocol that someone never fully explained?

Carers and parents seem to fall into several different categories round here. The childminders and nannies stick together like glue. The posh mothers cluster boldly, their voices louder and cars bigger than anyone else’s. The parents of fresh tinies in Reception huddle together self-consciously, like a new breed of sheep on the farm. The seasoned oldsters, having seen it all before through successive children at the school, either choose to remain aloof or breeze around bestowing their confidence on the new kids on the block. My problem is that I can’t decide into which camp I fall. I’m an oldster, yet am probably viewed as posh, but I also like talking to the childminders because they tend not to bang on about their kids. There are days too when dark glasses and a hat would be very useful. I don’t want to talk to anybody.

The worse thing for your status at the school gates is when someone has entrusted you with a fistful of raffle tickets to flog. Then you really learn who your friends are. People don’t exactly hide but they try their best to become invisible. Who likes being asked for money? This, I remember, is precisely the reason why I resigned from the school committee. It was getting to the stage where people would begin to shake their heads and back away when they saw me coming. I would apologise in fifty different ways, smile a lot and then ask for money. Maybe it was my technique that was wrong, I should have gone in all guns blazing, or perhaps carried a large banner with ‘cash donations here’ written on it. No pretence of friendship intended.

Recently, I’m tending to keep my head down and zone in on my emerging children, avoiding the gaze of my fellow parents at the school gates. This isn’t wise either, as people think there is something wrong and you find yourself in a conversation that catches you unawares.

“Everyone’s wondering if you are okay, you look a bit down.”

Nothing for it but to be cheery and chipper. A little smile here, a nod, a ‘how are you?’. You can’t avoid it. It has to be done, although, goodness, it is quite tiring sometimes. Yesterday I found myself applying mascara just before the school run. This in order to allay fears that I’m catatonically depressed. How I thought a dab of Maybelline would convey this I don’t know. Calls of “Hey, look at her in her mazzie!” didn’t exactly ricochet around the car park. With this logic, by Christmas I’ll be wearing frilly skirts, full make up and high-heeled boots, as my scrabbling towards the terminally jovial intensifies.

Life in the Slow Lane is written by Clare Kent. She has three children - Max is nearly eleven, Flo is nearly eight and Bobby is six and a half - and lives in Wiltshire.

NEXT INSTALMENT: WEDNESDAY 23 OCTOBER