Fruit loops

How is it that my eldest daughter seems to make friends with children whose parents are, quite frankly, a little odd? One child in particular has a right old fruit loop for a mother, I can never figure out what's going on with her at all, so mostly I just try to avoid her. (The very first time I met her she gave me a full in-depth acccount of her (very complicated) medical history). But that's not the one I'm going to whinge about tonight, there's a new on the scene.

Don't get me wrong, she's a nice enough person, very friendly, and she dropped her daughter off for a playdate today at 2pm, said she'd be back at 4.30pm (her suggestion, not mine. I'd have been quite happy with 2.30pm). It's been a beautiful sunny spring day, admittedly there's a bit of a cool eastly wind blowing, but it's not freezing, my girls and I were outside in just our long-sleeeved tops and perfickly ok (well, obviously not just long-sleeved tops, trousers and footwear as well, you know what I mean). Anyway, aforementioned mother turns up with daughter who is dressed in long-sleeved top, warm cardigan zipped up all the way, winter coat and woolly hat complete with ear flaps. Mother is concerned about the cold if she plays outside and she must stay wrapped up like this if they go out. (And this is not unusual, all the other french kids (well, my daughters' friends anyway) are also always wrapped up in this fashion until at least the last frosts have been and gone, sometime in June. Adrian saw her outside later on and asked her 'have they predicted snow?'. Thank God she can't understand English.

So, an over-protective mother you may think? Yet when she eventually turned up to take her daughter home at 5.30pm, leaving at 6.30pm (I was polite and offered her a coffee. She said 'No thank you, but I'll have some juice if you've got it', sat down and made herself at home), I watched her put her kids in the car. Youngest of 8 months in child seat, loosely strapped in. Middle one of 2 and a half years on booster seat (without back piece), strapped in with adult seat belt, eldest of 6 years, just on seat with adult seat belt. Shocking, in my opinion. And yet, this is also the norm in France, you never see children strapped into the cars when doing the school run, let alone into appropriate child seats. In fact, I think they only buy car seats so that their children can see out of the windows more easily. On top of that, unbeknown to me, she'd brought the dog with her (Adrian says it's a Rottweiler) and had left him in his cage in the car the whole time she was with me, and all the windows wound up).

What can I say?