We discovered this morning, at the same time as the rest of Facebook, that Number One Daughter has been nominated for a Women In The Forces Award, for being Inspirational.
Of course we were jolly pleased and proud, although we don’t yet know what she has inspired anybody to do. She inspires me to pour myself a second glass whenever I think of her, just contemplating her capacity to jump on and off boxes makes me feel slightly wobbly.
We looked up the Women In The Forces Awards, and they look glossy and impressive. It has left me feeling surprised and pleased that somehow I have managed to produce a potentially award-worthy Inspirational offspring. Of course I know that these things are entirely down to the individual concerned, but I still feel just a little bit smug, as if some of the credit for her general wonderfulness could be spread around a bit, and a tiny amount attributed to my parenting abilities.
With this in mind we did some credit-worthy parenting before we went out to the farm, that is, Mark cooked rice and chicken for the children’s breakfast.
This is not quite as conventional as cornflakes, but the thing is that they can sort out cornflakes for themselves at any time, whereas rice and chicken calls for some speciality cookery, so we thought we would get that done first, and then it wouldn’t matter if we didn’t get round to the rest of it.
I did not do any cooking, because shortly after popping into my office to discover new evidence of Number One Daughter’s magnificence, I spoiled the moment somewhat by stepping back and standing in a wet patch.
It turned out that Roger Poopy had done a wee on my office rug.
This was despicably criminal, because it is the second time this week.
We forgave him the first time, because we thought that he must have been caught short whilst we weren’t out at work and he was dependent on Lucy to notice his crisis. However twice on the run is not all right, and suggests that he just didn’t want to go outside in the rain since he has had his newly cool haircut.
Mark was very cross indeed. Then when I discovered that the wee had gone into my sewing cupboard and soaked into a bolt of white corduroy I was even crosser.
Poor Roger Poopy was dragged to the scene of his crime and subjected to some close-up compulsory wet-rug inspection. Then he was ejected on to the lawn where he was obliged to lie in solitary disgrace until we forgave him.
Given that I had not only to put the rug in the washing machine again, but to clean the carpet and then go through my whole sewing cupboard, this took me some time.
It turned out to be quite a soothing occupation, actually, and turned into a general sorting and tidying event. I wound up loose cottons and discovered lengths of beautiful fabric that I had forgotten that I had bought. I filled a box with neat rolls of loose trimmings and bindings, and another one with small offcuts that would be unlikely to come in for anything but which I was reluctant to throw away.
It turned out that apart from the terrible mishap with the beautiful white corduroy, nothing else had been touched, and in the end Roger Poopy was permitted to return to the house, where he lay miserably under the table until he judged that nobody would notice him climbing on to the sofa.
We took them off to the farm then, anyway. We had got to work, so we only had an hour, but of course even an hour is worth having when you are in the grip of an obsession.
I painted my room on the door, and Mark painted his newly finished seat mounting. Mark’s efforts are at the top and mine is below. You won’t be able to see any difference between my picture today and the one yesterday, but just so you know, I have put in the shadows for the table and chair. It all looks a bit darker generally, but that is because the sun did not shine today, and when I took the picture we were in the middle of a very steely-grey sort of downpour.
If you have got nothing else to do you could put the two next to each other so that you can see, like those children’s puzzle books where you have got to spot six differences in the two pictures, except I don’t think there are actually six differences.
It is easy to see if you look.
