By the third day of no husband on duty in a homeschooling household (admittedly, this week, mostly via i pad maths and spelling and word puzzles) I’d
risen up like a mad Medusa with a crazy 20cm mid section scar in the shape of an erratic question mark. The Internet didn’t work. My computer kept
crashing. I was locked out of my online bank account. Stuff that made me mighty
iffy but that my husband could fix in a jiffy. I was so over my husband being
away. I’d gone from being smug and coping and was in full-fledged banshee mode.
When trying to post a blog, the text went haywire on my blog and I couldn’t fix
it. Normally I’d wail for my son but he, along with my capable 9 year old was
at my studio being chastised for working there without me. They didn’t return until nightfall when I
guess they presumed I’d crawlin' back to my lair. It took me 3 hours on
and off (with light relief from The Housewives of Beverley Hills with
commentary from me about how they all looked as if they had been punched in the
mouths by the same plastic surgeon) to fix the text. I went from screen to
screen like a rabid dog with a text bone. Insane I know, but writing the blog
and posting it daily is how I hang on to shred of sanity. Without my daily
disciplines, I’d turn into a full-blown creature of the night. Or I’d watch
more housewives shit which is oddly compelling, and I’m sick of the Pioneer
Woman and her flat prairies, saccharine life though admittedly some of her recipes
send me scurrying to the wood pile to toast crackers or some such crud. I’m
going to draft my own tele trash: Hysterical
Housewives Stitched Up. Or: Cry In
Your Ear Woman. My son returned home and transcribed the blasted thing with
his nifty guitar playing, brilliant at drawing but crap at housework digits. Later
I retired to bed with a goblet of Penderyn.
By the fourth day, I couldn’t see the kitchen on account of
my hungry son and baking frenzied daughter. Before coffee I was scraping baked
on crap off the kitchen table with whatever that scrapey thing for the walls I
was climbing only I couldn’t on account of my by now, hysterical hysterectomy
scar with it’s attendant hidden wounds lurking below my surfaces. I’ve had so
much (frankly, all) my female equipment hacked out its little wonder I’m hacked
off. Weary, unable to bend and popping pain killers, I resorted to paying the
kids to fetch things that I couldn’t find: First
person to find my book gets 50p…and pick them up from the floor. My 6 year
old kept rushing to find my cripple stick. I’ve had to explain we can’t call it
that outside the house. My 5 year old who is a maths whizz (did he really spring
from my former womb – and what did they do with that flesh vessel anyway? Did
they just chuck it into an incinerator? Or sew it into someone else? Oh God I
could weep for the thing, but I mustn’t get emotional. I don’t have an excuse
anymore) eagerly totted up his tally and his siblings’ whilst calculating
future earnings and buying imaginary things with them before advising me as to
what would be left. I also came over all barking sergeant, Pick that up please! Pick it up now please! No over there, a foot to
the left, 3 inches to the right. Yes! That’s it! Thank you, thank you! Five
minutes later: “Fifty pence to the first
kid who finds my gold Pharma bag! – the zip up gold computer bag sized
thing I keep my stash of painkillers and other injectable (only Clexane) drugs
in – not the recreational kind folks, but I could sell some of them under the
bridge at West Shore I’m sure.
By the 4th day I was counting the hours and
hissing never again, never again, like The Little Red Engine or the green one
named Emily from Thomas The Cranky Engine. I’d inadvertently spilt a coffee mug
full of coffee over the bedclothes and my phone whilst lunging haphazardly for
my charger. I’ve decided that it is verboten for Si to be gone for more
than 3 days until I’m up and running like a refurbed Karmann Ghia, that I’d
secretly like given I’m nearing an age so classic I could laugh hysterically at
given I just can’t believe it. On the 5th day I was counting the
hours like candy and clearly submersing myself in the buzz that gave me. He
arrived back after a 5 hour whizz down the motorway and soon after big son and
I had watched The Party with Peter Sellers. Big son and I have added Cohen
Brothers, Woody Allen, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and Peter Sellers to my general
prescription. Si brought The Evening Standard + magazine for me along with
an extra dose of sanity. On the 6th day I awoke from weird dreams to kisses strong coffee, sourdough toast with honey and ecstatic children who were soon whisked off to theatre school and
swimming classes by SuperSi, leaving me here to do this and a spot of academic editing –
for which I needed some formatting help. I’m still rubbish at anything
technical, but I know a man who is. Life is now, technically, perfect.
