Parents’ Needle and Thread Nightmares…
Crafty Beggar. That’s what my Nan used to call me. Usually this would coincide with me taking the mickey out of her for being slow to get up from the sofa, or doing a nifty ice skating impression behind her as she shuffled without her stick across our carpeted floor. I know, little bitch of a teenager. I did get nicer.
But oh Nan, were you ever wrong. I may have been crafty in the naughty sense of the word – but now I’m a mum that’s as far as my crafty talents lie. For mums are expected to be creative wizards and I’m not cut out for cutting things out!
Let me give you an example… in fact let me give you five:
1. I flip out when my three year old comes home to tell me, ‘Mummy, you need to make me a planet for school by tomorrow.’‘What?’, I scream, turning to Pinterest with an extra large slice of Lemon Drizzle to quell my anxiety. Imagine my relief when my favourite website shows me I have all of the components required to make a mobile row of cardboard cut-out planets on a coat hanger. And relax.
2. Except now my seven year old has come home with the same, slightly up-scaled demand. ‘And it can’t be the coat hanger thing you did for him,’ she points at my son. Damn she has read my mind. I already know what Pinterest has to offer for mothers of artistic ability (which isn’t me)… So this is one hot potato that’s being thrown at someone else! ‘Sweetie,’ I begin my email to my husband, my crafty (in the sly sense) talents coming to the fore, ‘I’ve got a lovely surprise for you when you get home…’ I imagine him leaving the office on time, scouring the supermarket for the best Cava en route home, some langoustines, an aphrodisiacally packed bag full of mussels perhaps, my favourite tub of luxury ice cream. I smile like the Cheshire Cat. I am so skilled at turning this around. Not only have I secured an amazing supper, I now also have a free weekend as hubby has agreed to spend the time with our daughter working on their master plan – aka dried flower arranger’s oasis, wooden kebab sticks and plasticine. Yes, even this is a stretch too far for my imagination.
3. Did I tell you, Nan, about the time I sewed the Union Jack flag wonkily on the white T-shirt for my daughter’s summer show?She only complained about it for the entire summer holiday.
4. Then there was the time at the tender age of thirteen, when I spent 12 months carving a piece of wood into a Number Nine in my CDT (Craft Design and Technology) class at school. The beautifully smooth and shiny Number Nine was a Christmas present for my parents.It just wasn’t quite the freestanding letterbox, doorbell complete with fully working circuitry, or intricately carved Golden Eagle conjured up by some of my peers – but it was a lovely little number, even if there was no reason for making it except that I liked the number nine. Needless to say, I declined the kind invite to raise my game to the level of attending the class for GCSE.
5. Then there is the fact that I would tremble at the site of the sewing machine in Mrs Ruddle’s Textile classes. I cringed as she talked of the risk of our beautiful teenage fingers becoming part of the fabric. I panicked when my bobbin fell out. I screamed when the thread wouldn’t go through the eye of the needle. And I cried when I pricked myself with those shitty little pins that viciously waited for me in the haberdashery box.
But when it comes to cake… now we’re talking.
So Nan, all is not lost.
I’ll whip you up the carrot cake of your dreams. Layers of cream cheese frosting that would reduce Nigella Lawson to black mascara rivers of tears, inspire Lorraine Pascale to do a celebratory jig on the table, and convince Heston Blumenthal to do away with his sci-fi apparatus for once and for all and get back to some good old common sense basics.
I’ll bake you mince pies with pastry so melt in the mouth you’ll be sending them to Waitrose and Duchy Organic (or HRH Prince Charles in person) begging them to change their recipes.
I’ll knock you up a sherry trifle to rival even Mary Berry’s berry merry one.
And I do a mean savoury too. My chicken and mushroom risotto would send Marco Pierre White cursing enviously into the stratosphere, and don’t even get me started on my embellishments to Gino from TV’s This Morning flat bread recipe. Nobody rivals Miss Pollyanna’s flat breads…
One slight minor detail. Obviously taking into account points 1) through to 5), we’re talking taste here. Not appearance. Definitely, not appearance.
So a note to school teachers far and wide: we parents are not all sewers, felters, knitters, pompom makers, stickers, gluers, (neat) cutter outers, visionary artists, potters, carvers, sculptors, sequin sticker onners and straight with a ruler. Please give us a Get Out Clause. Ask us to bake cake.
For all of your school plays are better when cake is a player; sugar guarantees an energy-fuelled, stage fright-less production, bigger rounds of applause from the audience and chilled out spot light technicians. There is never a greater planetary lesson to be learned than a demonstration to the children through the degustation of an orbit of cake pops.
So Nan, I’m afraid I never remained much of a Crafty Beggar after all. Still, I make a bloody good rustic cake. Thank goodness you always taught me the importance of substance over style!
