Hot tubs and Champagne

Monday, November 18 08

Mrs Bennet drew herself up to her new height of five foot three and promptly fell over. High-heeled boots were all very well in enabling her to feel like an adult - and not just a Mummy - but it didn’t mean she necessarily walked like one. A friend she met 38 years ago in the playgroup Wendy House, was celebrating her 40th birthday, and Mrs Bennet couldn’t wait. She was off to spend a few hours in a luxury spa with fellow mums, who too needed a few hours off child responsibility.
She felt like a care-free giggly girl as she tried her spa slippers on. Her feet looked ridiculously small in the cumbersome white indoor shoes, which both veered sharply to the right, causing her to walk like a crab. And as the over-sized white gown wrapped round her twice, it had the amusing effect of making her feel like a four-year-old who’d raided her mother’s wardrobe, rather than an-almost-40-year-old.
But after a back massage which painfully ironed out her knotted shoulders, a relaxing swim and a leisurely 45 minutes, glass of Champagne in hand, chatting amicably with new friends in a bubbling hot tub in the cold night air, warmed sufficiently by a roaring fire, Mrs Bennet didn’t want to go back to being a Mummy. She wanted to stay here forever.
However as the clock struck midnight, she kicked off her glass slippers and retreated back to being Cinders. The silence of a sleeping house was shattered as an electronic toy teddy sensed her presence and started crying.
“Shhh! You’re not really hungry,” she told it, using the same tone she used on the little Bennets. But she knew if she didn’t stop and feed this tiny bear with its minute bottle, the real children would awake.
“Yum, yum, yum…” went the bear, until it finally sighed and said, “I love you.”
“That’s very kind of you, now go to sleep,” she automatically replied.
“Now I’m talking to toys. I really need to get out more. I wonder if Mr Bennet would notice if I hid a hot tub and a stash of Champagne in my shed?” she daydreamed, adding: “He mightn’t but the neighbours would!”