Funland- the Finale!

The Very Important Funland Day dawned.  The Very Important Chair had ordered me to attend the Very Important Gala Day and help with the Petting Zoo, to atone for my disgraceful behaviour at the Piss Up.  I agreed, as I knew I was going to be dragged there anyway by small children and if I was helping I could be much more judgemental about how much better it would've been, had I organised it all.

I had not realised this would involve me being forced to cram my considerable norkage into a violent pink polyester t-shirt three sizes too small, but I put it on anyway, as a dear friend was having a bad day and I thought a photo of my comedy tits in a comedy shirt might cheer her up.*

My orders were to arrive early so I could be 'briefed'.  Apparently it was not possible to partake of Funland without a 'briefing'.  Despite arriving early, no briefing was forthcoming, I was just pointed in the direction of the Petting Zoo and told to take the money.

I had envisaged a Petting Zoo as being a collection of fluffy white clouds in a variety of sizes.  Bunnies, and lambikins and miniature goats and other cute baby animals. Maybe some gambolling kittens and other cuddly shit.  I was wrong.

The 'Petting' Zoo consisted of tarantulas and snakes and cockroaches and lizardy things and great big enormous fuck off dragon things.  I recoiled at the entrance and declined the offers to Pet the Zoo.  There was also a duck, but the duck could not be Petted as it was a Vicious Duck.  I assume it was included in the Petting Zoo to attack Bad Children.

I survived the Zoo, without getting bitten by a tarantula or a duck, but was thoroughly savaged by the VIC when I was handing over to the next shift and it turned out I was supposed to charge the parents coming in as well as the children.  My disgrace was now of epic proportions.

Due to the black cloud I was now under, when we came to set up for the dance in the evening, I was only entrusted with putting the posh soap and smelly stuff in the loos.  I also commandeered the keys to the Bog Roll Cupboard, and cunningly hid a private stash to be distributed to chosen friends when the night wore on and the loos were bare.  Then, as I was still deemed incompetent, I went to the kitchen and ate canapés and talked to the sexy chef till it was time to go home and get changed.  The VIC was crosser than ever that she was now hot and sweaty and angry, and I was full of canapés and unchastened by my punishments.

The dance began gloriously.  There were cocktails, and I found room for more canapés.  I insulted the whippersnapper vet by calling him a whippersnapper, in one of those unfortunate scenarios when you only realise that the thing that is funny inside your head, is not funny outside your head, when it is already outside. 

The VIC kept coming and shouting at us to mingle, so we did, we mingled right into a corner with a bottle of whisky we had found.  Then we mingled back out again, and I told some very boring people that they were very boring, so now they will never talk to me again.  Which is good, because I'd been trying to achieve that result through tactful means for years, and actually all I needed to do was drink whisky!

The piper vanished from his piping duties and was found in the broom cupboard with a lady who was not his wife.  We lost the first band for a while as well, a pair of comely young wenches who were finally tracked down also chatting up my sexy chef. 

I think there was an auction.  I'm pretty sure that's why I spent half an hour holding a clipboard in a self important fashion anyway.  It's possible I was just pissed and being a twat. 

I suddenly became very popular around midnight when the bog roll ran out and word got around I had a private supply. 

I lost my shoes.  Several times.  Each time, I found them with joy and declared we would never be parted again. 

The next day it was discovered that after the dance, Youths had come out of their lairs and taken down all the Funland bunting around the village and wrapped it around various parked cars.  Apparently this wasn't funny.  The VIC stamped her tiny feet in Rumpelstilkskin-esque rage and burst into flames.

* Hope you appreciated it darling.

Of Festivals and F*ckings.

 

That afternoon, as the light rain I had predicted began to fall, it was time to set off for the joy that is the local Beer Festival.  Why we insist on going each year, I'm not sure, given I only drink poncy foreign beer in girly sized bottles and the DC only drinks lager.  I think I am under the impression it is a good country thing to do.  I think I am only under that impression because they have some hay bales to sit on. 

 

Nonetheless, nothing daunted, we deposited the Beast with the TQ, ordered the Terror to his basket, pretended we hadn't seen that he had ignored us and set off through the increasingly heavy rain.

 

The Beer Festival was dismal.  There were many men in red trousers.  I hate men in red trousers, they are twats.  There were also an unnecessary amount of bushy beards, and not nearly enough tweed.  I felt extremely smug that I had by far the nicest wet weather clothing, adorable as I was in the Dubes and the Barbour cape (I love my Barbour cape; even though when I proudly showed it to Mrs Farmer, she shuddered and pulled her battered and ancient Barbour round her a little tighter, and sighed at me in resigned disappointment). 

 

Hay bales and looking totes adorable in no way compensated for the beards, the red trousers or the fact I was standing in the rain, in a pub car park, drinking warm, flat cider, when not 100 yards away was a perfectly serviceable tavern, with a roof, and walls, and an inn keeper to whom I could shout "Hendricks and tonic, my good man, ice and cucumber if you would."  However, as you had to pay on your way into the 'Festival' which entitled you to a certain number of quaffs of swill, I persevered, despite being jostled by bearded red trousers, for I am cheap.

 

I was relieved when I had had my quota of flat, warm piss and could repair to the pub for a restorative G&T.  There was only time for one however and then it was time to go home and feed the Terror.  The DC had been given a free pass for the night, as Saff was away on another D of E expedition, and the other mothers were coming round for more margheritas and gossip (they didn't want to play poker for some reason, even when I promised not to compare myself to Victoria Coren Mitchell again).  

 

Terror fed, vats of margheritas made, the other mothers arrived and we politely embarked on the gossip.  Around 8pm, pathetic texts began to arrive from Saff and another feeble child.  They were wet.  They were cold.  They were utterly miserable.  They couldn't light the stove to cook the many noodles she had rejected last time that I had made her pack again.  There was a puddle in the tent.  A terse text enquiring why the fuckety FUCK there was a puddle in the tent revealed they had accidently pitched their tent in a ditch.  At this point we lost all sympathy, turned our phones off and made a conscious decision to get as shit faced as possible so we couldn't go and retrieve them even if we wanted to. 

 

This proved to be an excellent decision as under the influence of a litre and a half of tequila, inhibitions were cast aside and any pretence at being nice, impartial or discreet was abandoned.  Oh deary deary me!  Apparently the whole village is at 'it' ! All shagging each other like bunnies, in between carrying out complex feuds (usually related to the shagging) and shop lifting Prada purses

 

The DC lurched in some point and joined in the gossip with glee, revealing tales of drug dealing and money laundering (while I sat there thinking "Why haven't you told me this before?" and also "We could have stayed in town for drug dealing and money laundering and I could go to Waitrose EVERY SINGLE DAY"), before sliding off his chair and vanishing. 

 

The others stumbled home around 3am.  I followed the snores and found the DC comatose, fully clothed, smack bang in the centre of my bed.  I kicked prodded him a couple of times, to no avail, so I left him to it and retired to the spare room with the Terror, to ruminate on the night's revelations.  The Terror, emulating his hero, the Alpha Dog, also insisted on snoring loudly all night.

 

The next day, despite his hangover, I insisted the DC dug out the remaining pampas grass in the garden, lest any of the village shag monsters got the wrong idea about us.

Funland In The Big Field- part 2

The day after the piss up, hangover biting hard, was the eve of yet another Funland.  This time it was the PTA Fun Day, a misnamed event if ever there was one.  A smaller field was the venue for this fun, which at least meant less chance of the Great Unwashed descending on it.  On the downside, apparently I was supposed to organise it.  I have organised too many of these 'Fun Days' and my enthusiasm for Hook A  Fucking Duck, Hoopla and The Cunting Cake Stall has waned ever more each year. 

This time, the weather forecast threatened a variety of delights, depending on which runes you looked at.   If you went with the prognosis of the Local Character, who puts forth his wisdom via a Facebook page, has no meteorological credentials at all, but whom everyone seems to think infallible, despite his predictions almost always being wrong, then we were in for showers of frogs and plagues of locusts and various other epic torments of a biblical nature. 

If however you looked at one of the many useful apps now available, or indeed simply relied upon the British Broadcasting Corporation's forecast, light rain was predicted, after lunch. 

Despite this, the others of the PTA clung stubbornly to the Great Floods and Pestilence predicted by the Character.  Radar pictures were dismissed as White Man's Magic, for Lo, the Character had spoken. 

Thus it was, that several of them converged on me in the playground on Friday afternoon, wittering about the Bouncy Fucking Castle, and expressing a desire to cancel it.  As I was a) hung-over to fuck, and b) no longer actually gave a shit about the Bouncy Fucking Castle, I declared the Bouncy Fucking Castle Dead To Me and stalked off home to attempt to bake cakes for the Cunting Cake Stall and hope a little G&T eased the terrible pain in my head.

Miraculously revived by the healing powers of gin, I produced many cakes, dug out my special PTA box containing the bunting, the string, the sellotape, the blue tack and the scissors that are invariably needed at every single PTA event and that no one else thinks to bring and that I have written 'CASSANDRA' on in indelible marker so no other fucker can steal them, and had several more gins to get me through the Friday night joy of the DC catching up on his gardening programmes.

The next day dawned, as I had said it would, bright and sunny.  Arriving at the Slightly Smaller Field, I was met by the PTA Deputy Chair, in a mood as thunderous as the storms the Character had predicted, having a proper paddy about the lack of the Bouncy Fucking Castle.  All I need say about the Deputy Chair, to explain his character to you, is that he is an estate agent.  SUCH an estate agent. 

I pointed out that he was one of the wittering bastards who had wanted to cancel it, and if everyone had listened to me then there would still be a Bouncy Castle, but he was not to be placated.  I imagined ramming the 46 plastic yellow ducks for the Hook A Duck up his smarmy estate agent's arsehole and felt a little better.  As he had been such a twat, I put him on the candy floss machine, as it is a bastard of a job, involving getting sugar stuck in places where sugar should not be stuck.  Or yellow plastic ducks.

So there we were, our sullen, resentful little band, the ducks bobbing merrily, awaiting their hooking; the cakes listing to starboard, ready to be purchased for a sum completely out of proportion to their crappy rustic appearance due to being 'homemade'; the coconuts shying and the smell of burning sugar and flesh drifting over it all on a cloud of expletives, as the Deputy Chair burnt himself on the candy floss machine again.

Shortly, many feral fiends arrived to partake in the Fun, by bleeding their parents dry.  At some point the DC arrived and thrust the Beast at me, before setting off to walk the Terror. This meant I was also bled dry, as I thrust pound coins at The Beast and sent him on his way, as I fished another blue and gasping toddler out the Hook a Duck pond, and refused them a prize as falling in and semi drowning was Against The Rules. 

The Fun ended at lunchtime, hurrah, and I dashed home, all bunting, sellotape, blue tack, string and scissors accounted for; realised I had forgotten the Beast, dashed back, scooped him up, bought his silence with a lollipop I found in the glove compartment (best before May 2012) and finally returned home to find the DC looking pale and traumatised and the Terror looking slightly battered but wearing that expression of smug bliss which means some other creature has been brutally dispatched by his bloody paws. 

It turned out to be a weasel.  A fucking weasel.  Unlike the rabbits and pheasants that are his usual prey, the weasel had fought back quite hard.  The poor DC had been in a quandary, wondering which was worse: to attempt to intervene between a small but vicious dog and a weasel trying to kill each other; or to run away and pretend it was nothing to do with him, and then face my wrath when I returned home to find he had abandoned my poor dog to his fate! 

The Terror had solved the problem by ripping the weasel's throat out, and then proudly presenting the limp, twitching remains to the DC, blood dripping from his fangs, and a gaggle of Swedish walkers approaching over the horizon, about to be witness to the carnage.  The DC fled, towing an indignant Terror behind him, livid that his lovely present had been so summarily rejected. 

I was a bit livid too, The Terror has never given me anything he has killed, he keeps them for himself, but he has a bizarre crush on the DC, who he seems to regard as the Alpha Dog.

A Prelude to Funland or Why Cassandra Isn't Invited To Events With Free Bars.

Each year the enclave holds a Gala Day, followed by a dance in the evening.  This is Very Important, and in no way to be compared to Funland, and anyone who doesn't take the Gala Day and the accompanying dance Very Seriously Indeed will be tarred and feathered by the Very Important Gala Day Chairperson and drummed out the Enclave.  There's definitely a Spider Baby at the Gala Day though.

Despite my utter inability to take anything seriously, I signed up to help arrange the dance, mainly because I fucking could and to show all the lazy fucking underachievers of the enclave what one can do if one only puts one's mind to it, like the miserable bitch who recoiled when asked if she'd like to sign up for the PTA and gasped she wouldn't possibly have time, she had two children, you know. 

It turned out to be the most mind numbing tedious thing I had ever done, mainly due to the Very Important Chair, who desired us only to tell her how fabulous she was and express wonder at her exquisite taste, miraculous organisation and how she was practically perfect in every way. 

It wasn't all bad though.  I bonded early on with another committee member who intimated by shared looks and raised eyebrows that she too was failing to take the Very Important Dance as Very Seriously as she should, and we sniggered behind our hands each time the Very Important Chair babbled of  'shabby chick deecor for the marquee' or pronounced 'homage' as 'oomidge'.  Cruel yes, but the meetings were long and dull and we had to make our fun where we could.

After months of biting my tongue and refraining from screaming was it really that fucking important if the table runners were a shade darker than the fucking tickets, our reward came in the form of the Pre Funland Piss Up, aka the 'Corporate Evening' (I don't make the proper fucking names up, ok), where all the sponsors and helpers are entertained by the committee members to a right royal knees up, held at the local distillery.  What I hadn't realised when we were all taken aside by the VIC to make sure we had clean hands and had brushed our hair and be given a little pep talk about how we weren't there to get pissed, was that the distillery were providing all the booze, free, gratis, and unlimited! 

Naughty New Friend and I exchanged yet another look.  Thirty six years upon this earth have not yet taught me to regard a free bar as a pleasant bonus and not a challenge, and I was thrilled to discover she felt the same way.  Also, it seems rude and churlish to say no when there are delightful girls going round with trays of drinks, and it is a hot evening and so your wine is evaporating very quickly and they keep offering to take away your nasty empty glass and give you a lovely full one! 

By the time the VIC made her Very Important Speech, my Naughty New Friend and I were hysterical with our own hilarity and holding each other up as we collapsed with laughter. 

I compounded my disgrace a little later when I was holding forth to various great and good worthies from the local rugby club.  I was vaguely aware that I was possibly being a 'bit much' as I loudly regaled them with some of the filthier jokes I have learned over the years of working in a male dominated industry and having a sick sense of humour, and I incurred the wrath of the VIC who came over and suggested I should 'circulate' instead of 'hogging these chaps' who she 'would chat to now' .  The 'chaps' shouted "No, leave her, she's funny- you circulate." and the VIC, who rather fancies most of the enclave has a sort of head girlish crush on her, circulated off on her heel. 

Sadly, they called time on the free bar, and we had to return to the enclave and its hostelries.  There was some question of how we would make our way back to the enclave, and talk was had of the bus (public transport, quelle horreur).

Naughty New Friend had a better plan.  Dashing out to the side of the road, she flagged down the first car driven by someone who looked vaguely local, hopped in and demanded they took us to the pub.  Basically we car jacked a granny, so great was our horror of public transport.  Bless the granny, she took us, and I shall never curse a Honda Jazz driver again.

The pub was a mistake.  My last clear memory was the VIC watching us drive off with granny, mouth like a cat's bum (thanks again to St Jilly for another splendid phrase).  After that it is a bit hazy.  There was definitely a heated debate about Scottish independence, which I took part in whole heartedly, despite having forgotten all the clever and rational arguments about why it is a bad idea and thus backing up my anti- independence stance by simply shouting "NO, YOU'RE STUPID".  Luckily everyone else was also very drunk and putting forward equally well reasoned and coherent arguments.

The pub ran out of drink, distressingly early given the fun we were having, but far too late given the hangover I had the next day!

I tottered home, to be found by the DC slumped on the front step, searching through my handbag for my key by the light on my phone.  It is definitely the last time he will ever find me in such a state though- I have bought a little motion activated light for my key. 

Funland in The Big Field. Part 1.

Somehow, without me quite noticing, summer suddenly appeared to be in full swing, and with it the merry go round of joy that is the series of events that all fall under the heading of Funland in The Big Field (yes, I bloody love Father Ted, and yes, generally they all feature Freak Pointing in one form or another). 

I was quite annoyed about the unexpected onset of summer as once again I had failed to become magically thin, grow proper nails or arrange a grown up method of removing the full pelt I grow for warmth in the winter months.

 

The opening of Summer is marked by the first and most important Funland in the Big Field, the local agricultural show.  There are tractors and cows and sheeps, and gloriously bejodhpured girls trotting briskly from the pages of a Jilly Cooper.  There is also the hideous corner where they put the gypsies and their amusements (most unJilly like gypsies too), which is all the hateful children are interested in.

 

Mrs Farmer, in a cunning masterstroke, proposed she would take the Beast and Farmer Boy to The Big Field first thing, along with various cows and sheep, and possibly a tractor.  Thus she could show them the many varieties of sheep and cows available, and what larks they would have. 

 

Then later, she suggested sweetly, I could pop along and meet them and perhaps amuse the boys for a while, whilst she did farmery type things.  "What ho!" I thought.  "That seems a good deal, shove a plate of porridge down the Beast at silly o'clock, hand him over and nip back to bed for a couple of hours, before a leisurely afternoon perusing country type things and perhaps purchasing a few adorable tweed items."

 

Mrs Farmer also, for her heart is black as night, remarked I should bring the Terror, for he would have 'such fun'.  Even better, I thought, for the Terror, despite his horrid ways, does accessorise tweed beautifully!

 

Thus it was that I piled Saff and the Terror into my Mighty Honda just before lunch and set off.  About two miles from the Big Field we encountered the enormous traffic jam of plebs attempting to also have Fun.  I texted Mrs Farmer to inform her we would be late, she replied with a blasé "Yes, the sun makes the Great Unwashed come out." 

 

I was distraught!  I did not want Great Unwashed!  I wanted Tilly, and Milly and Clarissa cantering into the ring;  I wanted stout ladies in knickerbockers wielding black labs called Jarspar; I wanted jolly good old sorts balanced on their shooting sticks reminiscing about things they had shot in far flung colonies; I wanted floral blankets and wicker hampers and shady hats; I wanted someone from Merchant Ivory to appear forthwith and seamlessly blend my two visions into one, like they were in my head!!!!!  Merchant Ivory do not do Great Unwashed!  What was I to do?

 

I ploughed on regardless, not least because there was nowhere to turn the Mighty Honda, and also because I felt it was probably bad form to abandon my son to the Great Unwashed.  Once I had finally arrived at the Big Field, I was directed through many and many smaller and smaller fields until a man shouted "Park there".  Back to the Big Field we trudged, past the Clarissas' and Millies' and Tillies' horseboxes, regretting the choice of ballet pumps and thinking longingly of the lovely Dubarries languishing in the porch at home. 

 

Mrs Farmer had sent a confusing text as to their location, ordering me to come hither as she was already doing farmery things.  We walked many miles past stall after stall all selling various varieties of lurid tat.  My antennae were quivering for tweed, but not a hint.  My soul began to die.  Actually it was already dying due to the Unwashed, who were spilling everywhere, shovelling hamburgers into their gobs and towing Pitbulls and Alsatians. 

 

Annoyingly, the Great Unwashed Canines were far better behaved than the Terror, who had worked himself into a state of frothing psychosis with excitement at the many many things to kill.  "Horses!  Dogs!  Fat people!  What to bite first?  Ooh, manky hamburger, gulp!  Sheep!  Big fuck off cow!  I could totally take a big fuck off cow.  SAUSAGEINABUN!!!  YEAH! GULP!!!!" 

 

I finally found Mrs F and the boys, whereupon she revealed her fiendish plan. They were foaming at the mouth with excitement almost as much as the dog, and she remarked they were "keen" to go on the rides- would I mind taking them, while she farmered it up?   

                                                                                             

Feeling some small consolation that she had admitted she was on the verge of heat stroke in her Dubes and had expressed envy for my ballet pumps, I set off for Gypsyland.  It was hell.  Loud.  Awful.  Unwashed upon Unwashed.  Gypsies.  Rampaging children.  The one highlight was when a stupid Unwashed with a Chihuahua on a string fell upon the Terror, cooing "What a cute doggie."  My darling Terror fell upon the Chihuahua and almost swallowed it whole.  She beat a hasty retreat clutching her nasty rat and shouting "Devil dog!"  Hell, yes. The Terror does not take kindly to being called 'cute'. 

 

The best part of £30 later, the boys finally declared they felt nauseous enough to leave.  Oh the joy with which I fled Gypsyland!  Returning to the ring, where some very large cows were parading, we rejoined Mrs Farmer, now a lurid shade of puce, but clinging to the Dubes and her tweed like a trooper.  As we slumped to watch the parading cows, a hearty gent approached the boys.  "Hello chaps!  Picking up tips?  Now remember what I told you earlier!" 

 

"Who the fuck is that?"  I asked Mrs F.

 

"Errrr.  The vet."

 

"What vet?  Not from our vets?"

 

"Yeeeessss.  He's the head vet."

"I've never seen him, I've only seen whippersnappers and been charged a King's ransom for the privilege.  £5 to ADMINISTER an injection!  As well as a consultation fee, and the cost of the drugs!!!   Plus VAT"  I was just getting on a roll when I remembered how we got onto the subject.

 

"How does he know the boys anyway?"

 

"Weeeeeell, I had to go do farmery things, while you were in the traffic jam with the Unwashed.  So I left them with the vet."

 

"You did what!  What were you thinking?  He'll bloody bill for that"

 

"I know.  He'll probably actually bill us both."

 

To add insult to injury, I then received a text from a friend offering access to the Sponsors Tent and unlimited Pimms.  How I cursed the Mighty Honda.  I could bear it no more, I gathered the boys and the Terror, remembered to locate Saff along the way and fled home for gin