There was a man in front of us at the supermarket checkout this morning whose perfect grown-up shopping consisted of a bottle of Talisker malt, a bottle of Beaujolais and a box of Lapsang Souchong teabags.
We looked in silent envy.
He glanced pityingly at our trolley full of beef burgers and waffles and mini-rolls and apple juice and smiled an inward smile.
It would have been a depressing moment, except that somewhere in the supermarket somebody’s baby suddenly set off with the most ear-splitting bawl and we recollected cheerfully that maybe things could be a lot worse.
At home Mark removed the canine population off to the farm, leaving me in charge of the rest of the household.
I had had enough of washing up again, and shoved absolutely everything into the dishwasher. It wasn’t quite full, so I thought I would set it off later, and then spent the rest of the day hunting round the kitchen for things that I had forgotten were in it.
I spread bicarbonate of soda liberally all over the carpets and sprayed the worst puppy-affected spots with Vanish. After a while I brushed it all in and sprayed everything again.
I washed all of the bedding out of their boxes and pegged it on the line, and after a while the house started to smell an awful lot better.
Vanish turned out to be the sort of thing that the Trades Descriptions Act is intended to prohibit, in fact, just in case you are ever tempted to purchase any, it might be better entitled ‘smear the stains about a bit’. It did this very efficiently, and indeed some of them blended in with the carpet to the point of becoming almost unrecognisable as poo.
I put a rug over the rest and and hoovered up the bicarbonate of soda. Since I was in the process of domestic activity, I summoned the children to strip their beds and put some clean sheets on.
I couldn’t find Oliver’s alternate pillowcase anywhere, and hunted all over the place whilst he stood on the stairs watching with some interest. After a while he said helpfully that he thought perhaps he could do some looking as well.
I wondered where on earth it could possibly be, because there wasn’t anywhere else to look, since all of the pillowcases live on the same shelf. He suggested brightly that we could try down the back of his bed, because he thought maybe perhaps it might have accidentally got stuffed down there instead of being put in the washing basket last time.
When he had retrieved the pillowcase and been issued with a clean one I jammed the washing machine full again and handed them a dustbin bag for rubbish. Lucy brought it down some time later, having filled it in the meantime, and after a few moments of weary bin-emptying on the next floor down I had a sudden inspiration and sent a text to a lady we know who wants a job as a cleaner.
I yelled for Number Two Daughter and Lucy and told them about it, and we were in complete agreement about this being a far better idea than relentless grumpy hoovering in between dashing in and out to work.
In fact they were so relieved that they offered to share between us the financial burden incurred by having somebody else come round to clean apple juice off the work surfaces.
The cleaning lady sent me a text back saying she would be very pleased to come and clean for us but was away on holiday and would get in touch when she came home.
We are all counting the minutes.
The picture is our Excitement Of The Day, being the camper van which Number Two Daughter has bought. It belongs to some Canadians at the moment, and she is going to go and live in it in Canada.
It will be her very own first little home.
