Money Pit

Children! Schools! Bloody fetes!

I spent a rather frantic hour this morning making caramel chocolate slice for the school fete. It was frantic as I was also trying to sort out 4 irritating children - get them breakfasted, dressed, ready for school etc.

And I had to do the baking this morning as I'll be out all evening, and won't have any time to do it in the morning.

Well I won't have time for choc caramel slice. Apparently I'm still making butterfly cakes, to take while still warm and fresh.

Yeah... right...

I've ranted about the school fete to everyone and anyone who'd listen over the last couple of months. I think it got my back up when the 'organising committee' first started meeting at the beginning of the year. At 9:15am on Fridays, down at Ruby's on Bulli Beach. Which excludes all those pesky working mothers.
Then they had a big 'cook-off' a couple of months back, making jams and pickles and other assorted goodies. At lunchtime. On a friday. Oh! good times were to be had by one and all. Apparently. Coz, see, I was working. Again.
The final straw came when the letters came home with more details about the costs of the rides... They are doing this wristband thing, whereby you buy a wristband and can go on as many rides as you like (excluding pony and camel rides). The wristbands are $20 each. I have 4 children. I have availed myself of the special deal for school families - I got all 4 wristbands for the bargain basement price of $60.

And then I'll have contributed another $15 worth of baked goodies.

And $25 worth of raffle tickets...

And I haven't even set food in the gate yet!

The fete's tomorrow, and (grudging) props to the organising committee - they've done a great job, and it sounds like it will be a very profitable and professional occasion.

It just drives me nutty, with all the assumptions about parents of school kids here in Bulli... some of us are struggling financially, and not a week goes by that I'm not having to send money into school for one thing or another.

$6.50 each for a visit to the Life Education van.
$30 each per term for Gymsports.
$5 for this, $10 for that. It all adds up... It's an age-old problem. I remember my parents stressing about the amount they had to fork out each week when we were at school.

It just doesn't make it any easier.