Suddenly having step-children is not simple. That’s all I’ll say on the matter. Except that it’s even less simple when the older step-children (one each) are so embarrassed by the fact that their mother has become a lesbian that when you go to pick them up from primary school they ignore you, walk down the road so that you follow in the car like a kerb crawler, and get in only when out of sight of their friends. The oldest is Ella, nine going on nineteen. ‘Do you love my mum?’ she said to me when we broke the news. I said absolutely, I do, but somehow I wasn’t so sure she believed me.
Second oldest is my daughter, Erica. She added to Ella’s discomfort by wearing her trademark novelty hats – each day a different one from her selection – although they did come together in a mutual discomfort over their respective mothers.
The boys, Max and Vinnie, were quite young, six and five respectively. Two more different boys you could not wish to meet, but being so young, they didn’t ‘get’ the scandal we’d caused. They didn’t ‘get’ it for quite a while.
As for scandal, well, you’d have thought we’d killed someone and planted the body in the primary school pond. We lived in a village, you see, in the south of England. We had a friend who said at the time that you couldn’t do things like this in a village. According to her, if you want to be a lesbian, you have to go to London. My partner pointed out to her that there were already three same-sex couples in our village, and they were the ones we knew about. She had to wind her neck in after that, but I suspect she went on an immediate fact-finding mission in order to disprove the theory. I don’t know what she found out as she hasn’t mentioned our relationship since, not in ten years. We don’t see her very often.
My partner, by the way, is Jen. She’s lovely, and a bit of a saint. You’ll find out why during this blog.
I’m Carol. I guess it helps to know that.
The following posts will describe events and incidents that have taken place in our household over the years. As I said in the previous post, I think we’re normal. I’ll leave you to decide if you agree.
The mums, the kids, the dogs and the olds 
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