JULY IS A WICKED MONTH

It wasn’t until my daughter started school that I knew anything about the ‘who knows who’ of life at the school gates. As for birthday parties and who is and who isn’t invited, well that’s something else!

We live about five miles from my daughter’s school and there is only one other girl from our class where we live. Naturally I’ve encouraged my daughter Imi to play with Freya – she lives just a couple of minutes away by foot, after all. Each holiday for the past three years, we’ve had Freya over whilst her Mum works, and enjoyed taking her to arts and crafts club, to trampolining, to gym…. in fact when I think about it I’m quite dizzy recalling all the adventures we’ve had together. I think we almost made it to the moon once, on a particularly dull day last October.

So when Freya arranged her seventh birthday treat, for July 9th, a trip out Ten Pin Bowling followed by Pizza Hut, I felt sure Imi would be invited - especially as Imi and Freya share the same birthday.

Yet no invitation came home and this led to confusion and upset in our house. Did I arrange something else for the day in question?

In the end I arranged a family Bar-B-Q in the garden. I invited my three sisters and their children, plus a few neighbours and friends.

The day dawned and it had been raining all night. We’re going to be stuck inside, I thought - but no, an hour later, the sun came out and stayed all day. Everyone came – there were around thirty of us. It was one of those beautiful lazy, hazy summer days where we sat in the garden, three patio tables joined together for the adults. We all crowded in under the sun umbrellas, bottles of wine and bowls of salads passing back and forth. The children were on the lawn, playing tennis, swinging on the swing, jumping in and out of the paddling pool. We played pass the parcel and musical statues. It was just lovely.

And really I have Freya and her Mum to thank for our beautiful day. If it hadn’t been for Freya’s party we, too, would probably have had a small group of children to take either to the Bowling Alley or the Cinema or the Swimming Pool. It would have been fraught, expensive and tiring.

I guess this is life at its best; just as you think things have gone wrong they come right, and often in a way that can exceed your expectations.

The other nice thing to come out of this is that I’ve realised that the school gate ‘stuff’ doesn’t matter. Our real friends, and our family, are what matter ultimately. The road to friendship is not exactly a straight one, and it takes a while to work out who is merely being friendly and who is in fact a true friend. I must admit I’m still learning to separate the two (and having fun trying).

So July has turned out to be just wicked, as opposed to ‘wicked’ in the Virginia Woolf sense, and it bodes well for the summer. With the holidays upon us I guess we are all looking to entertain the children/grandchildren/friends/families as best we can. We have been really lucky and have received an invitation to a friend’s house in Cornwall where I’m looking forward to introducing Imi to pasties, piskies, sandy bays and calm waters (as well as finding myself a quiet corner of an old inn for a crab salad and a crisp glass of white).

In fact when I think about it, it looks to be turning into a pretty wicked kind of summer. I hope yours is too.

Bonne vacances!