Dad rules / Bored of the Burbs

I love 'Dad Rules' - a column written by Andrew Glover in The Sunday Times Style magazine - about the perils of Fatherhood. Apart from this small joy and the culture magazine - I wouldn't buy the Times at all. Well actually I don't buy it - Husband does. I'm more an Observer kinda gal. Anyhow - this week he talks about annoying social situations. No. 4 on his list is when at dinner everyone is discussing some juicy gossip and the person next to him says 'Did you have a nice half term?' He writes 'Suddenly you are trapped in a Mont-Saint-Michel situation - the tide's coming in and you're cut off from the mainland. Solution - shout "Make for the beach!" They'll think you're insane but they won't trouble you again.'

Love it. Especially as my life in Suburbia feels like this moment groundhog day stylee. When I lived in the big smoke - I had lots of friends. I still do but they are all in said big smoke. I am stuck in lovely house, good schools, green fields, suburbia. Little villagy place I live in is quaint, pretty and at a push interesting enough. What isn't interesting enough - not by a long shot - are the folk that reside here. I haven't seen one person in their 30s in a pair of converse. A huh. Bad sign. When we moved here the NICE people we bought our house off (Julie and John. Had to be eh?) invited us to a house warming at the mansion they just purchased. I went with Sproglet and it was pure horror. All the women wore pressed white linen trousers, jangly jewellery and and too much lipstick. They all had husbands called 'Andrew' who were architects and bankers and yawn yawn. It was terrifying. I aged 20 years the moment I walked through the door. They stared at me as I drank a bottle of Corona - I was the only woman drinking beer. I left hurriedly.

Since then - apart from one normal woman whose child goes to Sproglet's nursery - I have met only what I fear turning into most: women obsessed with home improvement, potty training and motherhood as a professional career move. Eek! In their company I want to skin up (haven't smoked a joint in many moons)talk about anal sex or drop my trousers and show my small star tattoo below my hip bone. I regress to teenage behaviour in a bid to distance myself from them. Either that or open a vein at the thought of spending my life with the stepford clan, as they try to out status one another.

I miss my normal muckers - women who admit their failings: feeding a bairn cough syrup to get a good night's sleep, drinking wine before bath time, sticking wee one in front of C Beebies to get ten mins to make dinner, or read a mag. Even better - women who don't even talk about Motherhood at all - ever!!! London suddenly seems so appealing - think I may have to do some lottery playing if I ever wanna get back there... But then, will I compromise Sproglet's schooling? The fresh air in his tiny lungs? If we lived in London would he be on crack by the time he is 10?

Things chez Crummymummy are looking up. Husband gets a degree warmer every day. I have been calm, supportive and somehow have managed to make my point. Husband in return has helped around the house - even clearing the cluttered cabinet in the dining room into some kind or order (a job I have put off for 8 months). This weekend we're taking Sproglet to the zoo and then will feed his small face with sushi. Think the latter is more for us than Sproglet, but anyway, it is a step forward. We aren't out of the woods yet but we are in a clearing... A suburban one sadly, but a clearing nonetheless.