How to be socially awkward

If being socially awkward is something you'd like to have a go at then here is a quick step by step guide.

1. Go to see Miss Saigon

2. Cry most of the way through

3. Laugh out loud when the man next to you gasps as Kim shoots herself (spoilers)

4. Sit in a coffee shop to try to compose yourself afterwards and tweet the person your programme tells you played Kim.

5. Carry on sobbing.

6. Get a little excited that the actress Tweets you back.

7. Know you have plumbed the depths of social awkwardness.

Where do you keep your horn?

I love my job.

I know I've told you before but children are amazing.  They are funny, even when they don't know that they are being so.  Towards the end of a lesson today a child farted, it was loud and everyone laughed.  The child from whom the wind escaped said, "Oooh, I'm sorry about that.  This lesson is really good and I just got excited."

We all had to agree.  It had been a fun lesson.  We are looking at the first Disney Alice in Wonderland film, listening to the soundtrack and learning the songs.  We've reached the part where we meet Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and we had our very own Caucus Race, where the only rule was that you had to move in time to music I played on the piano and then at a musical cue sang. "How do you do and shake hands,"

The children had really enjoyed listening for the musical cues in the film that signal danger, funny moments and creeping movements.  They were particularly amused by the noises that Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum made when they bumped into each other.

"Why do they make that noise when they bump their bottoms?"

I love their questions

"Why do you think?" I asked, hoping for someone to say that it makes you laugh.

"Because the composer decided to put an instrument sound in there."

"Well, yes, I suppose so. What instrument did he choose and why?"

"It was a horn."

I couldn't fault their listening skills, so I got out the French Horn and played a few notes. "Did it sound like this?"

"No, it's the horn you squeeze," they all agreed.

"Like this?"

They jumped.

"Why do they have a horn in their pants?" one boy asked innocently (really! He is only in year 3!)

I am a professional and so, of course I didn't laugh.

"Why has one of them got a bigger horn than the other?" asked another genuinely curious child.

"What makes you ask that?"

I know this sounds like a risky question but I wanted to know.

"Well one of them makes a higher sound than the other and you told us that big instruments make low noises and small instruments make high noises, so they must have different sized horns."

Yes! They listen to me.

The only thing is that now they've mentioned it I've looked at those odd twins and I think they both have very tiny horns if they are keeping them in their pants.

Julia has a mature sense dark humour

On my first year junior school (year 3) report, my teacher, who used to take her contact lenses out to keep us quiet, wrote, "Julia has a mature sense of dark humour."

I wonder what happened to make her write that?

It is true, though. I find funerals, hospitals and illness both fascinating and hilarious. 

Not necessarily when they all happen at once but you've got to laugh.

Yesterday, was the 24th of November. It's my least favourite day every year and it lasts all day. It's November the 24th from the moment you get up until the moment you go to bed. It rains, you go to funerals, hospitals and hear about illness and it's nearly Christmas; the first concert is 2 days away and you are not prepared.

But if you look carefully, there is always a small chunk of hope; a glimmer of humour, waiting to catch you by surprise.

You walk alongside the deceased's grand daughter, who you haven't seen since she was an eleven year old giggly flute player in your Youth Orchestra and say, "Am I allowed to say how much you've grown?"

She squeals. Everyone turns to look.

"Oooh! You've grown too, I didn't recognise you!"

Damn! I knew my trousers felt a bit tight!

Earworm

I have an earworm.

A song is stuck in my head and it won't go away.  I've been singing it for weeks.  It goes, " Da da da da da da dee dum.  De da de da de da da dum. Da da da da da da de dum. De da de da de da de dum."

Do you know it?

It's there whenever David Cameron appears on the TV, especially if he is talking about ISIS, which I discovered isn't the International Space Station, with a typo.  I keep clicking on things on Twitter, hoping to see lovely pictures of a moon, a black hole or the rings of Jupiter, only to be disappointed.

I can play it on the flute.  I must have played it before.  It's a pleasing tune.

David Cameron is on the radio now and the tune running through my head makes me think of spring time sunshine and frolicking lambs and it seems at odds with his words.

"I firmly support President Holland's decision to attack and I want Britain to agree to do the same.  We must put an end to the Caliphate of Isil.......airstrikes to target Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi are essential to finally end this self styled Caliph and his reign of terror."

Oh, I've got it!

It's the Caliph of Baghdad.

A comic opera by French composer, Francois Adrien Boieldieu. 

My mind is weird but this is what it does with scary news.  

I quite like the Belgians' response to the terror threat news, as cat pictures make everyone feel better but it has only made me worry about Christmas.  

Your Christmas could be in peril.  #BrusselsLockdown.  I worry for you.  

As yesterday was Stir-up Sunday, my Christmas cake, pudding and mincemeat are all made and although my allotment is weedy my winter greens are doing just fine.  But they really do need to release those brussel sprouts soon, otherwise your Christmas will be destroyed.

What's your favourite Carol?

Bloody Christmas! Every bloody year!

"It's not that bad," people say as they see me with my head in my hands, covering my ears, trying to erase the auditory memory of the growler and the girl whose singing sounds like a Muslim call to prayer.

"It starts earlier and earlier every year," others complain.

It is all beginning to make me feel old and tired and the children aren't helping. They have also noticed that the festive excitement cranks up earlier each year.

"We've decided that as Christmas gets earlier every year then by the time we're your age it will start in January."

I hope not.

These children could be the music teachers of the future. How will they cope if it does? 

Christmas music can't be practised with children before the beginning of November. Parents will send out death threats if you do. How will those poor music teachers get everything ready without the ability to time travel?

It's bad enough already. Our first Christmas concert for the orchestra is next Thursday. Yes, I know it's not even December yet and that means we've only had three rehearsals where we could play carols and Christmas songs.  It'll be fine. Of course it will. Perfectly fine!

This week, in school, I was teaching a song about Christmas dinner and so we are firmly in the realm of the festive mondegreen. "Nuts and currents weeding out the greedy ants."

I told them that next week we would be learning some of the more traditional carols, rather than the songs. I have put this off until now because I need to be in the right frame of mind for the most highly flavoured lady and Away in a manger no crisps in the bed the little Lord  Jesus lays down his sweet ted. The more archaic the language the more potential for a misheard lyric.

"Who was Carol anyway?"

They have such good questions.

This week's orchestra rehearsal was a takeover. As I was trying to sort out a letter to parents with the dates and dress codes for all the concerts (because the children, even when they are as old as 18, don't share this information) they organised themselves and started playing. One of the older members decided to conduct. 

I couldn't believe my luck; a chance to sit down, put my feet up and play the sleigh bells. I made everyone take a turn, searching for my replacement, as retirement sometimes feel like a very good idea.

Each one stood on the platform biting their nails, the edge of their jumper sleeves or bottom lip.

"What shall I do?"

"That's up to you."

"Errm. Yes, but how do I do it?"

"You've been watching the conductor, right?"

Their eyes pleaded, "make them be quiet"

"You have to catch their attention."

"How."

I shrugged.

Obviously, the younger, newer members had more support.

"Of course you can do it. (sotto voce) They don't watch anyway. What's your favourite Carol?"

This led to my colleagues discussing their favourite Carol.

Carol the 2nd of Romania.

Carol Kirkwood.

CarolThatcher 

Pope John Paul II - Karol Wojtyler

I was about to tell my favourite Christmas joke when I noticed our youngest player hanging on my every word.

I'm sure I've told this joke on my blog before but at this time of year it's always worth repeating your favourite Carol. 

Three men arrive at the Pearly Gates on Christmas Eve and St Peter says to them, "Right lads, as it's Christmas I'll only let you in if you've got something with you that represents the true spirit of Christmas."
The first  man panics a bit, pats his pockets, thinking that he has nothing except a lighter, so he pulls it out and lights it and says,  "Errm, this is a light and it errrrm represents the errrrm light that God sent into the world by errrrm giving us his son at Christmas."

"Ooo, very good," says St Peter, "you're in."

The second man has broken out into a profuse sweat.  He only has his keys.  So, in desperation, he takes them out of his pocket and as he does so he breathes a huge sigh of relief as he hears them jangle.  He shakes them loudly and says, "These keys represent the bells that ring out throughout the land on Christmas morning."

"It's a bit lame but Okay, you're in," says St Peter.

The third man is completely calm.  Instantly he pulls a pair of women's frilly panties out of his pocket and waits.

St Peter scratches his head, "I'm sorry, they are very nice knickers but I don't understand what they've got to do with Christmas."

"They're Carol's!" replies the third man smugly.

Shakespeare couldn't spell

I was good at spelling at school. In third year juniors (year 5) I was in the top spelling group and had to learn words like government, parliament and accommodation. My teacher was a bit fierce and you didn't want to annoy her because teachers were still allowed/encouraged to wallop the wayward.  So, I always learnt my spellings. I also read books because I loved them, which is what made me good at spelling. When she realised this she would recommend things for me to read and I thought that meant that she liked me.

 One day, however, when I was laughing at a classmate for not being able to spell something, Mrs T blew my mind, "Shakespeare couldn't spell either and you'd do well to remember that Missy."

Whether she just wanted to give more ammunition to my playground tormentor who had spent the whole of my junior school life teasing me for being 'posh' and 'swotty' or she was making a valid point I wasn't sure but I ran through the scenario in my mind. 

"Julia, how do you spell government?"

"G O V E R M E N T."

"Don't be silly, girl, you know it has an N in it."

"I know because it comes from the verb to govern but you said that Shakespeare couldn't spell so I thought I'd try to be more like a famous writer."

"Pull your skirt up!"
The sharp slapping sound and imagined sting of my upper thigh brought me back to reality and I was glad for one of the few times in my life that I wasn't a boy, who had to drop their trousers.  My imaginary smack was less humiliating because of my gender.

When you write often you make mistakes. Despite being good at spelling I expect my blogs have been littered with inaccuracies. Usually these are just typos . I prefer to write quickly and then go back, read, re-read and edit.  I'm not quite so good at grammar and some punctuation is a complete mystery. My daughter tells me that the extra space after a full-stop is no longer necessary.  Grammar wasn't a large part of the curriculum when I was at school.  I can make what I write understandable from copying what I've read but participles could dangle, unnoticed all over my writing.  I worry about this.  People get very cross about these things.

Michael Rosen had a lively Twitter debate this morning about the identification of 'my' as possessive pronoun.  I worried.  Had I used 'my' as a possessive pronoun?  What is a possessive pronoun, anyway?

It turns out that 'mine' is the possessive pronoun and 'my' is just a pronoun.  (Luckily there are some very good grammar Nazi-bloggers out there).  I relaxed a little.  I would always say, "This blog is mine," Does it matter that I can't name them, if I can use words properly?

Similarly, I wonder if spelling really matters.  I know it matters to the angry people on Twitter. Whole swathes of the country are planning to boycot Waterstone's in Walthamstow because, "how dare a bookshop not be promoting good literacy!"

A typo missed by the proof reader but wait, what about the missing apostrophe? Along with Sainsburys, Waterstones decided to drop its apostrophe in 2012 but have still to change the signage on their shops.

Does it matter?  We know what the sign means.  Shakespeare couldn't spell.  To be fair to him all spelling was phonetic until as recently as 1800.  When researching my family tree I found a Mary Sell or Mary Sele or Mary Cell, or Mary Cele and they were all the same person.  Even educated people like vicars or the keepers of parish registers couldn't agree.

Not being able to agree is very common when people are talking about spelling.  Does it matter if a four year old writes 'carot'? What if the teacher writes it like that on the board after that child identifies the sounds for her? I don't know the answer to that but I know that everyone will have an opinion and will be determined that they are right.  I expect that there are as many pieces of research showing that it doesn't matter as there are showing that it is vital. Teaching is hard.

Today, I was teaching Sammy Fain's songs from Alice in Wonderland.  The words were up on the whiteboard.
"Miss, that word is wrong."
"What word?"
"The one with the red line underneath."
"You mean Slithy Toves?  Does anyone know what the slithy toves are?"
They all agreed that those were made-up words.
"What about a Caucus race?  Is that a real thing."
They all agreed.  Caucus was a real word and they all thought they knew what it meant. Voices were raised.
"It's a flower."
"No it's not it means being careful."
"Don't be silly.  Our upstairs phone is caucus."

Oh, and I thought it was a convocation.  Awkward.

Colouring

Looking back on my childhood with rose tinted specs, I imagine life to have been full of long hot summers, punctuated only by a brief spell of leaf kicking, hiding from firework bangs and singing carols. As a musician, my build up to Christmas was always longer than most people's but we never practised carols or Christmas songs until after bonfire night. Winter lasted for about 4 weeks, with two of them being Christmas; the rest of the time it was summer.

Obviously, that is a better way of running the world. 

Now that I'm old and grumpy, life is one long winter, Christmas lasts for eleven weeks and it rains all summer.

Logically, I know things haven't altered that much but yesterday I discovered something that has disappeared, probably forever. 

You can sometimes spot cultural changes in songs. When my children were small they had a nursery rhyme book that contained these words:

Ip dip do

The cat's got the flu

The dog's got the weasels 

So out goes you!

"Is the weasels when you've got a nasty cough?" my daughter wondered. It was then I suddenly realised that many of those long hot summers, doing handstands on the field also included checking each other's belly for spots. Measles was a right of passage and meant you could have a couple of weeks off school, on the sofa watching Pipkin, having tomato soup for lunch and drinking Lucozade.

It's probably a good thing that children don't know about measles and can maintain their 100% attendance record, especially as they can watch kids TV all through the night now if they want. They can still watch that weird hare from Pipkin and his innuendos on YouTube.

Hartley Hare Being Naughty

Yesterday, I was teaching the children to sing Rocking Around The Christmas Tree,  for their Nativity play. It was so much fun watching them come up with a dance move to fit the line, "Everyone dancing merrily in the new old fashioned way."

They rubbed their tummies as they sang, "Later we'll have some pumpkin pie," but baffled me with the action they chose for, "and we'll do some caroling."

"What are you doing?"

"Colouring!"

"Colouring? What's that got to do with Christmas?"

"We always do colouring at Christmas."

"My mum gets a grown up colouring book too."

"Mine too."

"What about your Dad?"

"Don't be silly, Miss, Dad's don't colour!"

Grrrrrrrr. Of course, colouring is something women are encouraged to do to stop their little brains getting distracted with anything else like world peace, the human genome project or cracking the Beale cipher! Sorry. I just got distracted for a moment there. Back to the story....

"It's caroling not colouring. Have you heard of caroling?"

Blank looks.

"It's where you sing carols."

More blank looks.

"You know, carols? The Christmas songs we sing every year?"

"Like Away in a Manger?"

Phew! Spontaneous singing and happy faces.

"Anyway, caroling is where groups of people go and sing carols outdoors and people give them money for charity."

"Why?"

"Errrmmm," Saved by a girl in the choir.

"Will people give us money when we sing in the High Street for the Christmas Fayre?"

"No, we won't ask them to. Carol singers used to go around the streets and knock on doors."

"Are you allowed to do that?"

"If you have a licence."

"Does Father Christmas have  a licence?"

"I suppose he must have. Let's sing!"

Caroling appears to be dead. Long live colouring!

Mustard or Custard

Would you like to play a game of mustard or custard?

It's very simple, or complicated, depending upon your point of view. These are the steps.

1. Sign up to a Barnardo's Young Supporters Concert.

2. Enrol a choir of about 40 children.

3. Practise a dozen songs every week for two months.

4. When you realise that's not going to be enough time make a CD of your awful singing for each child and cringe anytime a parent mentions listening to it.

5. Suddenly realise there are still words you don't know.

6. Try to learn the words wherever you are: walking the dog, in a queue for the theatre, doing the weekly shop, sitting in a coffee shop. In fact, spend as much time singing to yourself as possible without being sectioned. You will find that if you are nearly 5 times as old as your choir members then it will take you 5 times as long to learn everything.

7. No matter how hard you try you can't help singing, "Food glorious food, hot sausage and custard. While we're in the mood, cold jelly and mustard."

8. The day before the concert eat a good tea of hot sausages and custard and make some star shaped biscuits for the children to eat after the concert. (I like Jo Wheatley's custard cream recipe) This is important. A post concert sugar rush is essential if you want to get home on the coach without tears.

9. Get up at 6am on a Sunday and walk the dog.

10. Arrive in school at about 7am.

11. Count to 37. 

12. Load excitable kids onto a coach and travel for two hours to a constant refrain of, "Are we there yet?"

12. Count to 37

13. Arrive a little early and run around the park, warm up on the steps and make sure everyone has been to the toilet.

14. Count to 37.

15. Climb a million steps to put bags and coats in our designated area.

16. Count to 37.

17.  Warn the children that they won't be able to go to the toilet again for two hours. Queue for 20 minuites.

18. Count to 37.

19. Climb back down a million and a few more steps to get onto stage. 

20. Sing for two hours. Stand up a lot.

21. Count to 37. Hand 32 over to your brilliant colleagues so they can climb a million steps and queue for the toilet and have lunch.

22. Stay on stage with five very brave talented children, while they sound check and practise their solos. This step is optional but I can thoroughly recommend it. 

23.Count to five.

24. Go to the toilet without queuing.

25.  Get lost and walk around the building for a bit. 

26. Climb a million steps.

27. Eat lunch.

28. Remind children that this is their last chance to go to the toilet for 2 1/2 hours.

29. Count to 37. 

30. Go outside and run around like mad things for a few minuites. 

31. Count to 37.

32. Go back to the stage.

33. Sing more. Stand more.

34. At 3.30/4pm deal with the 'post lunch slump' and try not to punch any teachers from other schools who set a bad example to their kids.

35. Sing more. Stand more.

36. Count to 37.

37. Count to 37 (couldn't resist)

38. Go to a boiler room, I mean dressing room, where your amazing colleagues have single handedly moved all the children's coats and bags, for reasons that remain unclear but were something to do with us being a nice, friendly school.

39. Eat tea. 

40. Give out T-shirts.

41. Change tops.

42. Remind children that this is their last chance to go to the toilet for three hours.

43. Count to 37.

44. Go outside.

45. Try to take a picture on the steps.

46. Wonder why the flash on your camera isn't working.

47. Count to 37.

48. Go back to the stage.

49. Sing. Enjoy every second.

50. Burst with pride as your soloists do the most amazing job.

51. Imagine you are surrounded by dancing crisp packets. It's like one of those dreams. You have those dreams, right?

52. Tell the children that Trevor, the man with the huge organ is going to be your next husband. (I love Trevor: a man who knows how to use his organ!)

53. Be amazed by the choirs that won the Barnardo's competition. The children were particularly impressed with the singing Dolphins.

54. Watch the dancing and wonder why so much dance is about girls in pants and why people will insist on clapping out of time.

55. Sing and stand more.

56. Wave flags.

57. Wait until everyone has left the stage and take pictures and chat with the conductor.

58. Count to 37

59. Go back to the dressing room and open the biscuit tin and invite the children to play, 'mustard or custard.'

60. Watch their faces as they timidly bite into the biscuit before declaring, "Phew, it's nice. I've got custard!"

61. Offer some to your colleagues, who are also surprised that there is no beetroot or courgette in them. (I think I have a reputation)

Simple!

Hug a bear day

Twitter tells me that today is #hugabearday, which is odd because I've been thinking about Teddy bears a lot lately. I'm assuming that the day has been invented by a British Teddy manufacturer, as checking the American National Awareness day list today is National Canine Lymphoma Awareness Day and National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day, which is a good job as Americans on Twitter have been confused about the hashtag and have posted pictures of real bears. I am very disappointed that Google won't help me find the source of this day. I need to know whose idea it was and why?

Why do we need a hug a bear day?

No one needs to hug a real bear. To suggest such an idea would be irresponsible. I can't imagine London Zoo using the day as a PR technique, with hundreds of parents lining their small children up by the polar bear enclosure for a quick mauling. 

If the day was invented by a soft toy manufacturer then I can't understand why they felt the need to keep their identity a secret. I've looked at the websites of British manufacturers and they don't mention the day at all. I'm suspicious that a journalist made the day up so that they would be allowed to write something warm and fuzzy once a 

year. 

Wherever this day has come from I still find it a bit odd that I have noticed it for the first time just as I have been contemplating the whole Teddy bear situation. 

There have been so many questions circling my head for the last few weeks.

It started when I went into my daughter's bedroom and noticed teddy Mildred abandoned on the bed.

I thought about how children name their bears, why only one gets chosen to be the special companion, why they get left behind during our twenties but somehow end up back in a cupboard or the loft in our thirties forties and beyond. I wondered if there comes a time post fifty when we finally consign the flea ridden fluff-stuffed cloth to the bin. The thought of doing that to my own teddy leads me to conclude that these are not ordinary bears but are spirit beings with a life and a soul of their own. 

I know. You're thinking, "She's finally cracked. The pressure of letting children bang things on a daily basis has finally taken its toll," but bear (if you'll excuse the pun) with me.

My daughter's bear was far from the only stuffed toy she had. Mildred arrived in a box, through the post, on her first birthday. The Long Suffering Husband and I didn't choose the name, nor did my sister, who had put the box in the post. He was just called Mildred. And, yes, Mildred was a boy. 

My bear was called Claude and I don't know why. My sister's favourite was known as Mo and as the much older bossy sister I remember that she used to get very upset when I tried to give him a much more suitable name.

"But he's called Mo," she would unreasonably insist. 

These bears just arrive when they are needed. I think that Mildred has done his job. He guided a small girl through her childhood and has sent her off in the world to become an adult. He will probably go to keep a watchful eye on her children, just as Claude did with mine. While they  were growing up, Claude sat, bald and blind providing the occasional disapproving tut. They were aware of him, never played with him but Claude was always a serious bear. He liked to help me learn the flags of the world and we would chuckle together about words. "Catastrophe. Ha ha. Cat wins an award but it's too big for it to hold so it falls down the stairs." We were reading Professor Branestawm's dictionary.

When I was about 14 we read Brideshead Revisited and were completely taken with Sebastian, a fully grown man who took his teddy everywhere with him. I think it appealed to us because, like Aloysius, Claude  also had an unusual name and secretly wished that he were small enough and I were brave enough for me to carry him around.  I have since discovered that this man-bear partnership was based on John Betjemin an his teddy, who was called Archibald Ormsby Gore. That is not a name any child or parent would give to a stuffed animal but can only have been the bear's real full name.

Claude is still partial to a chapter of Brideshead before bed

When my sister was still very small she accidentally left Mo on a Park and Ride bus in Oxford. You hear about parents who have to go and buy a replacement when this happens but if I remember correctly Mo found his way back to my sister, which is good because I know she wouldn't have been convinced by a replacement, who might even have had a different name. It is not unusual for lost bears to find their way home. Jenny Murray, from Woman's Hour, told the Daily Mail that her bear who was unimaginatively named Teddy was lost in a shop and although they looked for him and her mother tried to replace him she remained inconsolable, until one day, two weeks later, a Policeman arrived at the doorstep to bring the wayward bear home. I suppose every spirit bear needs to let his fur down once in a while. 

Some bears just know they have to stick close. Sir Robert Clark, one of Churchill's special operations executives had a bear called Falla arrive into his life when he was two. Falla knew how important it was to stick close. He parachuted behind enemy lines and served his time patiently with Robert as a prisoner of war in Italy.

Carol Vorderman still has her bear, Bungee. They would communicate in their own secret language. She says that she keeps him around so that he can remind her where she came from.

Maybe there is no mystery to #hugabearday. The bears finally want recognition for their years of service. It is time to remember the guides, the brave warriors and those that fell along the way.

Did you have a spirit bear? 

Do you like stories?

I hate shopping. 

I know, I've said it before and I'm getting boring now but I really do hate it. It's exhausting, frustrating and expensive.

The Long Suffering Husband took a few days off in the week to spoil my half term indolence. This has resulted in an even more tired and grumpy woman, who instead of sitting on her bum reading, cleaning out the odd cupboard has been forced to be sociable, go to the theatre and shop. What with that and the end of the Uni visits and the Royal Albert Hall concert coming up (which is great but always makes me surprisingly anxious beforehand) I'm probably someone that it's best to avoid.

The LSH decided that he needed new trousers and that I was going with him. "It will be nice to spend some time together and you might find something you like. You could spend your birthday money."

Men are expected not to enjoy shopping. They are presumed to get irritated waiting for their partner to come out of the changing room. Shops have catered for men in these situations and have sofas for spouses but only outside women's changing rooms. 

In search of somewhere to sit in Marks and Spencer's I found the home department: a comfortable sofa, coffee table and books on the bookshelf; a real home from home, so I settled in. 

It was a funny place to sit. Adults had private conversations above my head, as though I were a stuffed toy. The first conversation taught me to keep quiet.

"That cupboard is really nice."

"Hmmm. Not bad for a place to fill up with more of your junk."

I laughed. 

Out loud.

 Properly.

 It was funny. 

They both looked at me oddly. 

My phone buzzed with a text from the LSH, "in fitting room taking off trousers." 

I laughed again. Luckily the couple had gone.

I won't divulge any of the secret conversations that I heard after that except to say that my advice would be not to go to that party but it's probably too late now.

Children hadn't received the memo to ignore the strange woman who doesn't like shopping. They waved, smiled, showed me their sore knees and asked questions. One little girl said, "What are you doing?"

"I'm sitting," I told her.

"Are you allowed?"

"No one has told me I can't."

"Oh, right then."

A small boy came running towards me. He screeched to a halt and decided to sit  with me. 

"Do you like stories?" he asked snuggling up next to me.

"How did you know?"

"You looked like you do."

"Do you know any good stories?"

"Yep but I thought you could tell me one."

Just then his mum waddled up, puffing and rubbing her swollen belly.

"I'm really sorry," she said to me, "now leave this poor lady in peace."

"But she's going to tell me a story. Sit down mum. You look tired. You need a story too."

It an be hard to argue with that kind of logic. Maybe shopping isn't so bad after all.