We were woken up this morning after what must have been almost five hours’ sleep by the phone ringing.
It was Oliver’s friend Harry announcing his intention to come across and charge about with Oliver for the rest of the holidays, or until his mother turned up and accused us of kidnapping, whichever came first.
The dogs jumped on and off the bed and barked, and Lucy and Number Two Daughter made breakfast, and Oliver wanted clean clothes, and so in the end we thought that perhaps we should have coffee and start the day and then go back to sleep for a little while later on before work, when maybe things might be a bit quieter.
I have no idea why we thought this might happen.
Harry arrived, and then Number Two Daughter departed to collect Ritalin Boy, who is not known for being a tranquil presence in the household.
Of course Number One Daughter and Number One Son-In-Law are in Madrid. During their absence Ritalin Boy was being cared for by his Other Grandma, who is better at looking after children than I am, on account of having more patience. She was a teacher before she retired, a career choice which always fills me with the utmost astonishment, why on earth anyone would do something as exhausting and stressful as teaching when they could be a coal miner or a bomb disposal officer or a pig farmer absolutely defeats me.
Anyway, Ritalin Boy’s Other Grandad has been taken into hospital, and so we have stepped into the nurturing breach for Ritalin Boy, who bounded happily through the back door with his aunt whilst we were getting our lives organised ready for a day at work.
He settled in with squeaky contentment, dashing upstairs to hide everything from my dressing table, and refused churlishly to let me eat any of his toes, even one little one, even though they looked delicious and he would still have lots left.
He bounced on the trampoline with Harry and Oliver, until Number Two Daughter generously offered to take all boys out to the adventure playground at Brockhole for a couple of hours so that we could conclude our interrupted sleep.
We accepted gratefully, and they all buzzed off whilst we sank into instant exhausted oblivion, for not nearly long enough. The alarm went off twice to no effect, and eventually we were stirred by the return of Number Two Daughter determinedly trying to keep her crowd of boys quiet.
Ritalin Boy peered in at our bedroom door and demanded to know why we were asleep when it was still day and not bedtime. Number Two Daughter hauled him away whilst Oliver explained that we went to work at nights, and our night was everybody else’s day. As Ritalin Boy was dragged away down the stairs we heard him asking: “Are they vampires?” and we thought that perhaps we should get up.
Downstairs we discovered that Number Two Daughter had a visiting friend, accompanied by her two children of indeterminate but nappy-clad age. These are not the sort of creatures whose company I would deliberately seek out, and I was pleased to make a fairly hasty escape to work: however Mark was enchanted and had to be dragged away, making smiling noises and wishing that we weren’t too old to have more. He has always been better at children than I am, when Oliver was a baby he shrieked with miserable abandonment if Mark went out and left him at the mercy of my inadequate caring abilities.
I called back at home later to find that Number Two Daughter has in fact inherited my talent for nurturing infants, and was beginning to look longingly at the brandy bottle.
I made sympathetic noises and parked Ritalin Boy in front of the Train Game and hoped that it would take some time before he got bored. I left her cooking pizzas and beefburgers and all the other gourmet dishes favoured by youth, and thought with some relief that going out to work is a million times better than being a housewife.
We popped home to assist with the shower-and-bed part of the evening, and then I gave him an ice lolly in front of Netflix before bed in order to achieve a cup of coffee in peace, which might have countered the beneficial effects of the shower a bit but nobody cared by then.
We are a very full house indeed, because Harry is staying the night as well, and we have made a bed for Ritalin Boy underneath the desk in the office.
I am now on the lovely peaceful taxi rank, looking forward contentedly to a night populated by Bank Holiday drunks, and thinking how very much easier it will be than poor Number Two Daughter’s night.
What a pity her taxi licence didn’t turn up in time.
