Our household is in a heightened state of house buying and selling temper induced limbo. Money for old rope springs to mind, and murderous thoughts about lowering my current estate agents, (both sets) into the North Sea wearing concrete wellingtons made by myself makes me feel temporarily soothed. I have worked it all out, the game of smoke and mirrors and Chinese whispers as all the different agents pass the buck up and down the chain and all the solicitors involved accuse each other of not doing any work. If I ever move again, I shall do the whole lot myself. I have been left furious, however - irritated, in bed as I had to take a few days off for a fabulous autoimmune flare, which brought on some seething and glaring via Skype.
Also the fuss of builders and plans, all in house, or rather in family, for only a possibility of a house in sight. My nephew roped in by myself to be the architect for new place as he just finished at Uni, so time to do some work for Auntie. I have roped my ex partner in to be the structural engineer, he does not know yet, but will help after I have helped him with red wine and told him all the dreadful things I have done of late. However my current husband and love of my life, has been totally frantic with steam coming out of his ears travelling up and down the country delivering courses and lectures, and arrived back extra hungry and busy. His special serious tone reserved for doing over due work always indicates to me that vast amounts of distraction and procrastination is on the horizon. His clients appeared three deep at times in the wrong location and his software caused yet more malfunctions on our computers and phones, and we had to ring everybody up and find out where they had gone.
The first thing he noticed on his return from travelling up and down the country and doing several laps of London was that I had bought two shocking pink wine glasses which disgusted him beyond measure, I must say with the red wine I slopped into them liberally for medicinal reasons.. they did look most foul. I enjoyed my wine which is not very often, much more than usual. The second thing I noticed was a new instrument, we only own around 100 so of course with moving house we need to buy more, absolutely vital that he helps by doing this.. also constantly bidding for more stuff on Free Cycle.. which must be banned, the last load of tents he showed me with flourish need a bonfire under them. The latest addition is an ancient Melodian - it has driven me around the bend, constant squeaky tunes and air escaping from holes in the wrong place, and then a furious and periodic, frantic rubbing noise. This activates my suspicious walk and Miss Marple tendencies.
Rather than getting on with any of the work I have been told is vital, he sits motionless in front of his lap top, after I have given him a special go faster favourite dinner of chunky bread topped with asparagus over spinach, over avocado and Parmesan with vine tomatoes, drizzled with pesto, toasted pine nuts and a poached egg on top. not forgetting the splash of snobby aged Balsamic vinegar. He does two minutes work, and once I have gone continues to violently sand a wooden box which is the container for the Melodian. When I approach him, I get a beaming grin and a 'hello dear' At the end of each evening he gets into bed with this wretched thing to play me whistling wheezing tunes on it, to help me relax as he tells me about his outstanding deadlines. This is all highly acceptable to me apart from the bit where he rises at a terrible hour, to do the dance of the dawn trousers fuss, and lament about how busy he is so can't stay in bed with me.
Tea in bed is literally an activity which must never ever be stopped, altered or interfered with. I have at times had numerous people sit on the bed in the early hours, one naughty neighbour who finds it hilarious to let herself in and shriek with laughter at us in bed, or various teenagers, grandchildren or visitors to the house, this is all tolerated, but what is not, is him not making the tea or indeed not having it with me. It is a tradition, breakfast news in bed, (yes very indulgent, but I find that coming too with some gentle frowning and tutting about national and international news helps me wake up)! This combined with a combination of cats which sit apart, but with us, and various combinations of children. If he gets up too early and gets stuck into work before 5 am, tea is overlooked and I have one of 'those' moods!
Moods aside, we have had the husband and wife road show of bickering this week, I could sell tickets and our friends love it. One particularly vile crime committed by me was to offer to spread the contents of the sink with a spatula over his desk top. Please darling could you put the coffee grounds either in the bin, or on the flower beds or straight in the compost bucket, treat it like a yoga move, bend, stretch, move etc. Despite my best diplomatic efforts I did resort to shock tactics. However it made a change from the mountain of shoes and boots I piled up twenty pairs at time around his computer as a protest to them not being in the shoe racks we had built for such things! Mrs Grumpy struck again, I am very lucky though, he had booked himself onto a non speaking retreat for a long week-end, starting today. I mentioned casually that this was a tad inconvenient at the height of conveyancing for our imminent move. I was cast aside with a nonsense dear, I don't need to be here at all. Later when a musical gig came in for this week-end which will earn him less than what he drinks in beer, the retreat was cancelled immediately. So hopefully I can go to that and shake some percussion and meet people if I am feeling better. Or he hopes I will sing along. Mind you my singing along of late appears much to my alarm to produce an ever deepening voice, I caught myself doing some 1990's middle aged lady's bellowing along to my exercise music and Ertha Kitt sprung to mind. Also when I am in bed with one of the cats, I always sing to her, she has previously loved this, but it must be my new tones.. she now gets very angry and gives me warning nips with flattened ears and violent tail, as if to say pack it in!
youtube.com/watch?v=uVyfq6D...
When I have been in bed resting my teenage son has been helping by having full drum practice in the room underneath for hours on end, but he keeps good time along to Spotify so I shan't complain. There are mixed ages in this house so give and take is the order of the day, unless there is a problem with tea in bed. The week has lurched to an end quite nicely, I am picking up a bit, and have been amused by the various phone calls coming in from places my husband has been working or staying. Call number one involved a startled man wishing to know what he should do with 12 loo rolls, two pints of milk, three cartons of orange juice and some cheese, they were of course destined for me but left safely nearly 40 miles away. Call number two from a different man several counties away wondering what he should do with the many birthday cards all stamped and propped up with nowhere to go, should he post them, even though they would be several weeks late. Call number three this time a more irate man wanting to know why his favourite chair had been stolen and why it had later turned up in a disused garage a very long way away from the building he worked in, This having something to do with my husband having discovered the chair in this man's office and felt it belonged to nobody at all in the world and would be perfect for outside in the sun. Having used it to play his accordion and ignore all appointments, it was duly left there abandoned and had caused much mayhem.
I am looking forward to lots of fun this week-end, nothing in particular, but to be out of bed is a start. Also we can actually leave the village. Two missing sets of keys, the only sets of car keys, have re appeared. 'He' goes through phases of telling me I do too much washing, this in a man who peppers himself in meals from head to toe, plus liberal applications of polish for instruments and also oil for the car or anything else he goes near, this often combined with wading through mud in estuaries when misjudging the tide. His solution is to role his trousers up and pop them at the back of his wardrobe thinking they will self clean. I was on all fours today with my eyebrows knitted together on a timely surveillance mission, and spied a pair in there of jeans that could tell a story or two, lashed to the belt loops, set number one. Unsurprisingly he had been searching for these temper inducing trousers for over a month. Set number two appeared from under his side of the bed again, keys lashed to belt loops on rolled up best suit trousers, these were confiscated immediately and checked for epic table manners failures from his last stay in a hotel up north. We were both very pleased to have some access to the car, and off we went this morning to a meeting in the local town. Keys lost again, this time stuffed down between two cushions involving the sofa in the reception. Two women gave me those special looks reserved for working in the receptions of large institutions as we hunted for them, him under the sofa and me on top.
Now I must get on and write my memoirs to Dr BDP and explain why I continue to be so naughty with his diaries!
MaryF x
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Good versus bad
