Not anything

Grit is not in a good mood.

Scheduling is not my strong point. I am not an organiser. I sometimes say things like 'Yes! Book us in for the sofa-making workshop on Tuesday!' Then 20 minutes later I am saying 'I don't think we are doing anything on Tuesday. Put us down for four tickets to see the childrens version of that 3-hour monologue on cannibalism'. Then when I get home I see that every Tuesday for the last two years we go to French club.

Anyway, today we have ended up in no places doing nothing.* And this time, it is not all the fault of my dreadful organisation.

We start off with the not art and play. I like art and play. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger disappear to fight over who gets to play with Am in the garden. Then I get to have tip-top quality chat time with Jol and Michelle and Bee and all the nice home ed ladies who do not run off and hide when they see me like some do. But today we did not go to art and play because we had not horseriding and not swimming.

Next, we did not go swimming. We already missed our lesson on Wednesday but Fish always says 'Never mind! Just call the desk and tell me what time you want on Friday!' Fish is a very nice swimming teacher and not at all bossy, like I've read they can be.

So I call this morning. Unfortunately I do not speak to the nice Fish. I speak to the awkward Jelly. Jelly says Fish is not there. Jelly will not take a message for Fish. Jelly will not give me Fish's mobile number which I already have but cannot find. Jelly will not give me Fish's home number even though Fish has already given it to me and I cannot find that either. Four phone calls later and I have still not got hold of Fish but just keep getting the awkward Jelly. By then it is time to go to horseriding so I have to give up swimming. I say to Shark, Squirrel and Tiger, 'Never mind, at least there's horseriding.' Not.

We all get in the car to go to the stables. We are late. This is partly because Glastonbury, the visiting gardener, has come to pull the ivy away from the flues and gutters and decide it is all the neighbour's fault because it is their ivy, and it is partly the fault of Squirrel, who says she wants to wear her new denim skirt with the loveheart pockets and I say you cannot get on a horse with your skirt with the loveheart pockets unless you sit sidesaddle. So this negotiation over denim skirts and leggings delays us by 10 minutes.

When we arrive at the stables the lady is not in a good mood with us. We are late and she says she cannot extend our time because she has to cook lunch, so there. Now at this point I might just be able to start some negotiation, but then Squirrel, Shark and Tiger see a dog.

Squirrel, Shark and Tiger are terrified of dogs. They are even terrified of mongrel Lucy, the stable dog, who is aged 17, blind in one eye and disabled in one back leg. Lucy doesn't really walk but spins round because of her dodgy leg. Actually the spinning bit is a little scary, but you can tell by the way Lucy's fur is coming out that she is a very old dog and not likely to do any savaging of any creature in the near, medium or long term.

As soon as Squirrel, Shark and Tiger see Lucy the one-eyed, three-legged mongrel dog, they start to scream. I mean really scream. Tiger climbs up my back in her terror shouting 'Mummy help me! Mummy help me!' She gets to my head and knocks off my glasses onto the stable floor. Squirrel is hanging on my arm and knocks my shoulder bag to the floor, spilling all the contents out. Shark is clinging onto the only available leg I have because the other is buckling under the weight of Tiger. The whole unbalanced weight of our bodily edifice is pulling me over, and I will go because of the weight of Tiger. It is only with the application of my elbows to Tiger that I stop myself from falling over and crushing Squirrel.

Now this would be funny if I were not at the centre of it, and if the stable lady were not watching this performance with her arms crossed, wearing a very impatient expression indeed. Lucy is doing her spin-walk manouevre as fast as she can to hide under the table. She will probably crawl off to die and that's another black mark against Grit and all the little junior Grits.

It's not surprising that the stable lady isn't really in the mood to negotiate, the lesson ends before it begins and we all go in ignominy home. On the way home in the car I try to tutor Shark, Squirrel and Tiger in some tactics of how to behave with people when you want something from them. I tell them a good tactic is not to scream in front of them or kill their dog.

We have had a very not day. And I am not in a good mood.

*Since I am a person who has to achieve something everyday in order to survive the suicidal tendencies, I can say that the only saving moment of the day is the fact that we did go to Maureen's Discount Shop and bought three pairs of plimsolls. Maureen did not look happy at the sight of Shark, Squirrel and Tiger running about the shop and jumping up like spring lambs, but some things I just have to ignore.