A long time ago, that is many, many Saturday afternoons ago, Beatrice was selected for the GB PE team.
This meant turning up for PE practices for an hour on Saturday afternoons. Every Saturday afternoon. Then the leaders, who may I add ALSO had to turn up EVERY Saturday afternoon, thought they needed a little more practice and so .... practice they did for an hour and a half EVERY Saturday afternoon.
Now you may think that the Christmas holidays would offer some respite which indeed they did. That is if you understand "respite" to mean extra practices, which in GB world it does.
(GB world is somewhat different to all other realities)
Birthday parties were arranged around GB PE practices. The girls danced out of Evie's Disco party and into their PE slippers for an extra special practice. The girls turned up to birthday parties in the church halls clutching a sparkly wrapped gift in one hand and their tunic and guddies in the other. We sacrificed many National Trust Days Out to make sure that Bea was at PE practice. During the Christmas holidays when an emergency practice was called, Captain Ann treated the team to a "mackers".
In the week before the competition, Bea was told she was the sub. You may think that after all of the practicing, she would be somewhat disappointed by this. The opposite was true. She was so excited to be the sub (it is "a very important job, after all") Honestly, it was like she had won the lottery!
I was also delighted. It removed the pressure which you shouldn't feel, but do. I could imagine Bea deciding that the routine required a little extra hand flourish, or "attitude" at some point and doing her own thing. I could also imagine her going left when everyone else went right and EVERYONE gasping in horror!
Even as the mother of the sub you still have certain responsibilities. On Wednesday night, I saw on Facebook that Zelda had whitened Evie's guddies thrice already. Bea's had been in the washing machine and were happily drying by the fire. I got the whitener out and applied a fresh coat each evening. I was not confident in the whiteness and imagined myself glossing them with a little left over paint from the garage. I decided against this and trusted in the whitener.
Finally, the day of the inter-district competition dawned. I know it dawned, because I saw the dawn. On a cold and icy winter Saturday, I took Beatrice to the church before 8 am. I sent her into a secret hair salon with only a bobble and hair net for security. They returned this little girl to me.
I did not recognise her, but was assured it was definitely my daughter.
We then set off for the competition.
As we headed to Ballygowan, we must have slipped through some sort of portal, because when we stepped out of the car, we were firmly and unequivocally in GB world.
Hundreds of identical little GB girls chattered about. The Glengormley group were herded into a circle where I learnt a very valuable lesson; send her to the competition with her leap pad to play ... she did tell me off for not knowing this information. I also learnt some of the secrets that turned the Glengormley girls into GB stars.... Captain Anne has a special star shaped box. It is filled with magical stars. She puts a star into each girl's slipper and ties the ribbons herself. This individual attention has two results...
1. The girls know that they are Captain Anne's stars
2. The bows are immaculately uniform.
It's the little details that are so important in GB world. The Glengormley girls had identical buns, with very special bows, prettied (that was "pre-tied" but auto correct changed it to "prettied"- sometimes auto correct knows what it is doing).
With a secret star and a jingle, the team performed their routine beautifully. (While Bea stood perfectly still in her sub role)
They came second and were delighted. As Bea explained to Captain Anne "Second isn't that bad" and as they chanted in the car on the way home "First is the worst...second is the best..third in the one in the wedding dress...fourth is the one with the hairy chest"
Now, all of the mummies had conflicting emotions. On the one hand and perhaps the over-riding emotion was one of joy in the team's success. On the other hand, there would be more practicing for the NI finals.
After more practicing, the day of the final dawned (once again...we saw the dawn) and we headed off for the competition.
Our expectations weren't high. What was high however was the standard of the competition. The Glengormley Girls were on last. Then they performed.
They were brilliant.
I AM BIASED.
Obviously so was the judge, because they came first. Also obvious is the fact that in this instance, first is most definitely not 'the worst"
There was much celebration!
And many, MANY photographs.
So Beatrice came home with her trophy (which was brought EVERYWHERE and shown to EVERYONE)...
... and a lovely ("I love GB") bag of goodies from Captain Anne, including a little magical dancing girl...
... a star in her shoe and a great big smile.
(You can watch the epic encore performance here)
