charles darwin and mary poppins

Learning to negotiate my turn on the school run; body swerving the unnerving school gate matrons and their predilection for unsavoury opinions and withering glances - while at the same time giving a nod of acknowledgement to the parents with the genuine smiles - takes aquired skills and commitment years in the making. Such tactics are also second nature now when depositing/collecting sprogs from evening activities. So says the "Clique Avoiding Handbook for Parents", to which I am an avid subscriber, or I would be if it existed. Tess has had to deal with the brunt of some pint size cliques at school of late, I'm hoping it will pass soon enough, but I guess I do recall such nonsense starts at a young age. On a more positive note, I've noticed that sprogs also develop their own post activity routines too, as nicely demonstrated here by Tess and Eve's weekly post Brownies wall performances.