Why Mummy Drinks on the delights of October Half Term
To celebrate the publication of online sensation Gill Sims’ hilarious debut novel, Why Mummy Drinks – The diary of an exhausted mum, we’ve teamed up with our friends at HarperCollins.
We asked author Gill Sims what her character Ellen might be doing this October half term and how she might entertain her ‘moppets’, Peter and Jane – we hope you enjoy our exclusive read…
Somehow, every single year, Mummy manages to forget about half term. Despite attempts at reminding herself, such as putting it into her phone and scrawling “KIDS OFF SCHOOL” in huge letters on her tasteful middleclass calendar, featuring all the photos from the previous year where Mummy pointed her phone at her precious moppets and shouted:
“JUST SMILE! JUST LOOK LIKE YOU’RE #MAKINGMEMORIES PLEASE!!!”
Mummy always forgets. Perhaps she blocks it out, due to the trauma of the children having a whole week off school when they only seem to have been back for about two minutes after the never ending summer holidays? Whatever the reason, Mummy sails blithely through October, until someone brightly asks Mummy if she is getting away for half term, and Mummy suddenly realises that the children are shortly going to be off school and she has made no plans or arrangements for this eventuality!
Obviously Mummy is not going away, as anything reasonably priced was fully booked around last February, and anything that still has availability now costs eleventy billion pounds. Therefore, (once Mummy has managed to wangle a few days holiday and lied to work that she will totally be working from home for the other days), she asks her darling children what they might like to do in the holidays!
“Softplay!” shouts the Boy Child, as Mummy gags at the thought of the salmonella smeared poo pits and the ungodly stench that lingers in all soft plays.
“What about a nice museum?” counters Mummy weakly, as the children laugh scornfully.
“Cinema!” cries the Girl Child “Loud, noisy films filled with irritating songs that will be stuck in your head for the next three years, preferably in 3D so you will have to fork out for yet more sets of 3D glasses because you always forget to bring them with you, and then once we’ve eaten our body weight in sweets, we can complain the 3D is making us feel sick!”
“Or a nice woodland walk?” tries Mummy hopelessly, as the children cavort, their eyes gleaming with consumerist glee.
“Swimming!” suggests the Boy Child “Swimming is fun and wholesome and good exercise, Mummy! And it only costs £2.50 to get in!”
“Yes,” thinks Mummy “£2.50, plus £8 each for new goggles because you’ve both ‘lost’ yours again and will claim that you can’t possibly be expected to wallow in the soup of other people’s urine and verrucas without goggles, only for you to spend the entire hour running round the pool and screaming while I bellow at you to stop running and get in the pool and actually do some swimming IN YOUR NEW GOGGLES!”
“The zoo!” shrieks the Girl Child.
“Noooo, the zoo is rubbish! I want to do Lazer Quest!” argues the Boy Child.
Mummy can feel her soul dying and her bank account dwindling already. As the children continue to argue about what life sucking, overpriced activities they can try to break Mummy with, Mummy quietly checks online to see if anywhere has special offers on gin…
Thanks Gill and cheers to you!
If you’re looking for ways to entertain the kids and make memories this half term but without breaking the bank, check out our ideas and savings here…
Fancy yourself a 2 night spa break with Best Loved Hotels, plus signed copy of Why Mummy Drinks AND gin goodies?!
[* Shield plugin marked this comment as “0”. Reason: Human SPAM filter found “makeme” in “comment_content” *]
Dear Mummy, I have just come back from a short break in Wales, the local pub had a gin list which was twice the length of the wine list.
And there are local gins and distilleries, why don’t you persuade #gadgettwat to #makememories and have a lovely trip to Wales. Then you can tell people how you braved #StormBrian, look big and strong. And drink all the gin!
Happy halfterm if you can
Love these. Will there be a sequel… Maybe why daddy ran off with the younger model. Or why daddy runs off to the shed.
Love this lady and her take on life. Please give her a huge advance for gin on her next book to make sure she writes one! Suggested title “why mummy is still drinking” 😀