Leaf it to me

“What do you want?” he shouted down at me, grumpily. “I’m looking for Charles,” I said. “Charles who?” he barked. “I don’t know his second name. He was having a party. I’m here to pick up my son.

“I was told to come to the house with the willow tree,” I said, pointing to the huge weeping willow in the middle of his garden.

I think the bleary-eyed, grumpy tattooed man must have had teenage children himself because, instantly, he seemed to understand: “Try one of those houses over there. Good luck,” he laughed.

It seems like just the day before yesterday Albert was going to parties where he played pass-the-parcel and mums stayed and enjoyed a cup of coffee.

But now that Albert has turned 13, he clearly doesn’t want his mum coming anywhere near his social life. If I make the most innocent of inquiries, such as asking what one of his friend’s surnames is, he looks horrified.

“What do you need to know that for? You don’t know them, there’s no point.”

And if he’s being dropped off or picked up anywhere, he prefers me to keep my distance, in order to avoid any chance of me talking to other parents or being seen out in public with him by his friends.

I can understand it. His older brothers were all the same. After a lifetime of being ferried around by parents controlling their every move, they get to the point where they want us to back off.

The only problem is, they seem totally incapable of organising themselves. Which is why, just a few months ago, I spent three quarters of an hour driving round in circles with 16-year-old Roscoe who assured me he knew exactly where the party was when we set off.

“Rob said it was the last house on the left just out of the village,” he kept repeating to me, as if the reason we were lost was because I couldn’t understand basic instructions. But there were four roads going in and out of the village and no phone signal. We found it by chance in the end.

I remembered this fiasco when Albert announced he was invited to Charles’s sleepover and that, not to worry, he had all the information I needed.

“I’ve got his address and directions and all of that,” he announced. When I asked if I could speak to Charles’s parents, he glared at me, throwing his arms in the air: “Why do you do this? You never listen. I told you I have all the details. Why don’t you ever believe me?”

Eventually, Charles’s mum and I exchanged texts. They were going to an adventure play centre near us, so we arranged to drop Albert off there and pick him up next morning from their house.

I made the mistake of asking Albert who else was going, thinking we might be able to share lifts: “People. Just people,” he said, shaking his head in exasperation. “There’s no point in telling you because you don’t know them.”

I asked him to write out the directions before he set off with his dad so that I could pick him up next morning: “It’s OK, I’ve remembered now that I’ve been to his house before when Conor’s dad was dropping us home after his party, so I know where it is,” he said.

“But you won’t be with me when I’m coming to pick you up, Albert,” I had to point out. (And he wonders why I need to double check everything).

But I should have known better than to read the directions he had written out for the first time on Sunday morning. There was just a postcode and the words ‘The house with the big willow tree in the garden”.

Still, I reckoned there must be just the one house in Charles’s village with a big willow tree. So I stopped at the first one I came to, which is how I arrived at the bleary-eyed, grumpy tattooed man’s house.

Then I noticed four other willow trees in this street, and that the village spread out over quite a large area.

I could have phoned Charles’s mum to say I was lost but thought I’d save Albert that dreadful humiliation and, instead, stopped some young lads on bikes: “Do you know where Charles lives? He has a willow tree in his garden.” They pointed me in the right direction.

Albert had clearly had a great time. Charles’s dad made me a cup of tea while he gathered his things and, when we were ready to go, the birthday boy came to say goodbye.

“You must be Charles,” I said. “Happy birthday. Did you have a good party?” “Yes, thanks,” he replied, smiling.

When he got into the car, Albert didn’t look happy. “What did you say that for? ‘You must be Charles. Did you have a good party?’ Do you realise how intimidating you sound?”