Mummy's Little Helpers

Isla has been invited to an allotment party. Shall I say that again in italics? Isla has been invited to an allotment party. If I mention the words allotment and party a lot here, it is meant to convey confusion, confundity, general mirth, an image of shrugged shoulders and a twirling of the index finger about the ear, and general all round befuddlement. An allotment party (sorry, I really can't help it). Worse still, it's from the daughter of Right-On Mum, the Mummy everybody hides behind their cars to avoid as she struggles into show and tell with a scale model of Daughter's bedroom complete with working light and bookcase filled with the Complete Works of Shakespeare (unabridged edition). Right-On Mum wears a lots of beige because organic clothes just can't be bleached, and Rah Rahs around at coffee mornings force feeding everybody with her hemp and sofa stuffing muffins (homemade. Rah). She's even converted her hybrid car to work off cooking oil and can regularly be seen in the school kitchens syphoning off the chip fat, all the while Rah-ing about saturated fat and salad bars. We're great friends as you can imagine. The best.

Anyway, at first I thought Isla had got it wrong, four-year-olds and correct, detailed information do not make easy bedfellows, but no, she produced the invite from her satchel with a told you so flourish and unfolded the paper. It was bedecked with images of spades and wellies which I thought were simply decoration and a chance for Right-On Mum to show off her computer skills (which incidently runs off a dynamo that she works with her foot while on the computer. She has a really big left thigh). But no, the pictures were actually a visual list of items needed to enjoy the aforementioned allotment party (I did mention it didn't I?). It turns out that an allotment party involves turning out your four year old in wax jacket and flat cap (well that's what the picture suggested), dropping them off at Right-On Mum's allotment (of course we can stay and help if we like rah rah) where they will dig and plant and water, eat a picnic picked from the allotment and then go home. That's right, come and celebrate the birth of our child with slave labour. We're a bit behind on the weeding you see, but to make it fair you can harvest as many tomatoes as you like for your lunch.

And why not? Set the children to work, they've been sponging off the state for far too long now. Free education, free healthcare, isn't it time they gave something back to people and a society that has been too soft on them? They get Two Whole Days off a week, that's 104 days a year of lost productivity. What have we been doing allowing them to sit back learning ballet/karate/TV watching when they could be making themselves useful?

This is a fantastic turn of events. Why didn't I think of this first? Not an allotment party obviously, Husband says we can't get an allotment until I manage to keep one supermarket-bought basil plant alive for at least a week. But there's loads of things that would make a great party, a greeaat party. I could turn my entire house into a play zone, send out invites and watch them flock. Fabulous.

Now let me see, what kind of parties do I need to have to get all my jobs done? We could start off with a Light Dusting and Sweeping Party, followed by a Window Cleaning and Vacuuming Play Session. We could break for a Make, Serve and Clean Up Your Own Lunch Party before moving into the Ironing Zone (possibly followed by DIY First Aid for Burns Tutorial, but it depends how the Ironing Session goes down). To finish we could play hunt the dog turds in the garden and enjoy a brisk race to be the first to put them in the poo pot (oh yes).

This is wonderful! Brilliant! Dare I even say inspired? My very own Eureka moment has finally occurred (but not in the bath I'm afraid, the laptop tends to short). All I need to do is have ten more children, make sure that they are each born in a different month, then I can throw a Cleaning Party for each one. That's it, a totally clean, ironing free, dog mess free house and garden every month. It's time to sack the cleaner.