What to wear? What to wear? 

  “Mum, it’s time to go.”

School mornings are extremely regimented for us. Dale gets up first and plays cars with increasing volume until Miles and I surface. Fruit, toast, yoghurt, last night’s rice pudding – anything really – get consumed ferociously by Dale, reluctantly by Miles. Flapjacks are our latest breakfast idea: my earth-mother response to the big cereal companies marketing their products as handy snack bars as a supposedly healthy option. I drink very weak Lapsang Souchong tea and feel slightly nauseous. In fact I often catch myself wondering if I’m pregnant, despite the fact that I am currently entirely single and celibate. It’s just that sort of feeling. Surely too much wine and too little sleep wouldn’t have anything to do with it?

We all get dressed and try to remember to brush our teeth and wipe the jam from our mouths. Finally there is Fenning – the only three year old I know of who just can’t seem to make it out of bed in the mornings (isn’t that supposed to be a teenage thing?). I sort of pour Fenning into his clothes, place a flapjack in one of his hands and piggy-back him to nursery. He is usually awake by the time we get there.

All of this is fine as long as I don’t care what I look like. I mean, I pretty much always manage to put something on (although I admit that the pyjamas have made it to the school gates on occasion) but glamour is not a priority. This morning is a different matter. I’m on the hunt for a mortgage. 

I am a single parent. I have been self-employed for a mere 6 months before which I was a full-time Mum (which some joker has decreed is a form of unemployment). My accounts show that the business has plenty of room for growth…. Would you give me a mortgage? I’m not at all sure that I would give myself one. 

I decide that I need to look pretty smart, in that kind of casual but well-heeled way. So I home in on a little old cashmere number (on sale now in any charity shop near you) and top it off with a slightly horsey style of leather jacket which was given to me by a mail order clothing company for whom I briefly worked. With hair and face I go for the “natural” look i.e. I do absolutely nothing to either. I can’t do much about my battered boots except polish them in the remaining 30 seconds before we run up the road to school. A love of polishing leather is something I have inherited from my father. It is so beautiful to see that deep molasses colour and shine emerging as you rhythmically brush and buff.

Once I have seen my three boys safely in to their classrooms I walk up the steep incline to the New Town area of Edinburgh. Several hours later, my brain is overloaded with facts and figures. Base rates, discount rates, fixed rates, variable rates, tracker rates. They all seem to me to be extortionately high rates. I have filled in numerous forms, produced copious evidence of my identity and drunk lethal quantities of latte. I reckon milk overload would kill you before the caffeine could with the proportions of latte, but expresso renders me a nervous wreck. I wander along George Street, trying hard to not even look in to those sumptuous shops oozing expensive linen, silk and cashmere. The first buds of spring cheer me as I pass Queen Street Gardens and head for home. All I can do now is wait to see if any one of those big lenders will accept me as a customer.

At 5pm some good friends call round. They are also seeking a mortgage so we compare notes, share a bottle of wine and then decide to head out for some food with our collective brood of children. At the last moment Miles reminds me it’s Cubs night and that he is being “invested”. I wish this was something which could make us some money but instead it seems to involve me giving him £3.50. John offers to take Miles up the road while Maggie and I shop for food (so why are we in the off-licence?). It is good to watch Miles walk off happily chatting to John. About the only thing I feel I cannot provide for my boys is some adult male company.  Recently I started reading “Raising Boys” by Steve Biddulph who stresses the importance of a male role model. I kind of stopped reading after that bit, which, as it is on page 11, was rather pathetic of me. As Miles vanishes round the corner I realise that he is dressed in red. Not wholly appropriate among all the other green-clad cubs, but perhaps the scout leader will be colour blind.

Later I collect a joyously over the moon Miles, proudly sporting a yellow neckerchief and clutching a fistful of badges (to be sewn on to my cub uniform, Mum). Back at John and Maggie’s house we end the evening with a home viewing of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – John’s favourite (he even sings along). My boys and I walk home under a clear starry sky, Fenning curling in to sleep on my back.

©Julia Welstead