Let’s do this together

The world’s earliest Christmas party actually turned out to be good fun, but the “traditional” Goan pork vindaloo got served late, so I was a bit of a dirty stop-out.

I hurried home but got back at 11.30pm – very late for a school night – to find all the lights blaring, The Dark Lord on her ipad (I could see the blue glow in her room from outside) and the dog crossing his legs for a wee.

It amazes me that teenagers think they should be allowed to drink alcohol, stay out till late and even vote. Yet they can’t put themselves to bed.

Earlier in the evening The Dark Lord had gone with her friends to see the Christmas lights being switched on in town, so I’d left a list of instructions:

1. Heat gravy for one minute.

2. Heat plate of sausages and mash and peas for three minutes.

3. Pour gravy on food and eat at table, without dripping gravy over the carpet this time.

4. Take plate back in kitchen – it won’t kill you to put it in dishwasher.

5. Do your maths homework – this is not optional.

6. All devices off by 10pm.

7. Brush teeth and lights out at 10.30pm.

8. Or else… I rang her at 9.30pm to check she’d done her homework. She moaned: “No I can’t – I don’t understand it.”

I tried not to be sarcastic, but failed.

“Oh I wonder why that is? It couldn’t possibly be because you’ve skived off maths homework for two months, could it?”

I put the phone back in my pocket and joined the rest of the ladies at the table. They’d all had calls from various offspring and now it was our time to chat about something other than homework.

Hilariously, Mrs Competitive Mum couldn’t make it last minute because… and this just writes itself… she had to collect one of her amazingly sporty children from a super-important hockey match.

I groaned when I read that on the group Whatsapp and wondered why I got the child who hasn’t been able to find her PE kit in two years.

A couple of hours later, I walked through the front door fuming at the house in chaos.

I put the remains of the pork vindaloo in the fridge – we had loads left over as it was too spicy for the ladies – and marched upstairs to have a go at The Dark Lord.

“I WAS asleep,” she said, sounding very much awake. Then she changed her story. “OK, I was resting as I couldn’t get to sleep yet.”

Nipping to the bathroom to do my teeth quickly, I said as sternly as I could with a mouthful of toothpaste: “Yes, well it’s hard to sleep with your eyes glued to the ipad.”

“I wasn’t on my ipad,” she fibbed. “It just looked like I was because of the light from the hallway.”

“Oh that’ll be the blue light from the hall?” I said, rolling my eyes and going to bed with the final threat ringing in her ears: “And if you don’t get up at 7.30am for school, I’m cancelling your trip to London to see the Christmas lights.”

She was up sharp next morning and, I noted, fully-clothed.

“Ah I see you also failed to undress yourself for bed last night too,” I said, sighing.

“I can see I’m going to have to put Boris in charge when I’m not here!”

Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.

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