It’s all about books. And basic maths. (From Bucks Free Press)

It’s all about books. And basic maths.

9:07pm Sunday 28th February 2010

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This time last year we spent probably the entire corresponding weekend in February designing and making her outfit. My husband did the blueprint – measured in centimetres to the second decimal point. What’s wrong with inches? He supplied the cardboard, paint and technology.

"So in my weakness I search the internet for ‘making a cone’. The first page I find is how to make a 55 gallon, cone-bottomed processor for storing fossil fuel petroleum. It’ll do."

So it was my job to make an axe and a hat the shape of a funnel. Ah, I need to design a cone. Let me see, measure circumference of her head, find out radius, draw circle and cut out. Hold on, do I need a circle? Or semi-circle?

So in my weakness I search the internet for ‘making a cone’. The first page I find is how to make a 55 gallon, cone-bottomed processor for storing fossil fuel petroleum. It’ll do. The maths is the same and our funnel is impressive.

This year, my daughter was at a loss. I encouragingly sit with her by her bookshelf and go through the books she’s read recently. ‘Can’t you just go as a cowboy?’ husband helpfully suggests. I sigh.

At least I won’t have to make a cone, funnel or anything cylindrical.

She considered Dick King-Smith’s ‘Ace’ and we get on with sketches of pigs. I realise how badly I draw. My pig looks like a sausage (no middle-man) and trotters? Forget it.

I try and design a pig’s head. We could make it out of pink sheet stuffed with wadding (ahh, how well the charity shops supply dress-up material). I show my daughter and she agrees that my pig face looks worrying. I tilt my head to examine it and think it looks like a badly bandaged head injury case. With a snout.

Then she changes her mind. ‘Can’t you just go as a cowboy?’ I hear repeated distantly as husband moves from room to room contentedly eating shortbread. I sigh louder and add a ‘Mmm’ at the end.

How about Adolphus Tips the cat? Or Black Beauty she suggests? I frighten myself envisaging my horse sketch. After some more thought she finds the book and says, ‘I’ll go as a blob. It’s actually a real character, the heroine’s thought blob. Oh well my pig would have looked like a blob anyway.

Saturday was spent trawling charity shops. A clean sow-coloured double sheet cost us £1.99 and I’m happy as a lark.

Funny thing is, I have to make a circle again. A circle with a diameter of... hang on, circumference needs to be... 2.85 metres, so... hold on, school maths firing me up now, diameter must be (quiet whirring in brain retrieves formula: C=Πd,) therefore the radius is, oh hell reverse the formula... Reverse, reverse, woman!

”In my mind’s eye, the outfits look spectacularly impressive. But as my daughter stands in front of me while I pin the hem and just crumple all that surplus material, I’m tired and disappointed.”

Mrs. What’s-her-name from secondary school would have been proud. All those hours spent ruining her whiteboard markers in a temper, underlining furiously, hoping to teach a class of girls who in turn are trying to hold fluent conversations about hairstyles and Starsky and Hutch and being constantly interrupted by Pythagorus.

So my material is spread out on the living room floor and I’m trying to work with over two metres of poly-cotton, a tape measure (in inches and metric) and pencil. You’d think a blob shape was irrelevant – a blob’s a shapeless entity anyway. No! You’re very wrong! I need to create a child-sized tent from the neck to the ankle. Then stuff it with something.

The fact is I’m no good at this though I quite enjoy thinking things out. In my mind’s eye, the outfits look spectacularly impressive. But as my daughter stands in front of me while I pin the hem and just crumple all that surplus material, I’m tired and disappointed. I’m sick of pink and want someone else to finish the job – really well.

I’m offered airy little pillows (giant bubble wrap) from my husband’s hoard to pad the pyramid shape out. These are put into shopping bags and pinned under the pink tent shape. Yes, I can see the blob beginning to take shape now.

This evening I’ll make a blob headdress with the leftover material. More air pillows, more pinning sewing and more almost swearing as I stab my finger with a needle another fifty times.

I know that in the room next door there’s a sea of pink fabric awaiting attention. I’ve only postponed the task by a few moments by writing this. I had to get this out of my system.

"There will be some very slick outfits on Thursday as there always are. I know ours will look like the sloppiest of creations"

My thoughts about next year’s inevitable World Book Day run like this: get her to read the Bible or The Railway Children – outfits are dead easy. For the former white sheets, sandals, long hair and maybe a beard; for the latter my clothes slightly altered to fit her.

There will be some very slick outfits on Thursday as there always are. I know our will look like the sloppiest of creations and no one will know the trouble I had. But I will celebrate my daughter’s initiative in deciding who she wanted to be and being able to follow it through with her Mum who though a wholly untalented seamstress was full of energy – at least at the outset.

If anyone needs any funnels, cones or 55-gallon cone-bottomed processors made, I’m your contact. I have everything anyone could possibly need.