It is Number Two Daughter’s birthday today, and she is thirty years old. That is really, really old.
Number One Daughter is thirty years old as well. I have been a parent for more than thirty years.
That is a long time. I have spent thirty years worrying about somebody else’s nutrition, cleanliness and emotional well-being. I am sure that I must be properly qualified as a real grown up by now.
I am doing what grown-ups do at the moment, and trying to raise some cash, largely for the purpose of supporting my offspring. I am on the taxi rank, because it is Saturday night.
I have just eaten an enormous dinner and am trying hard not to go to sleep. This is not easy, because of course it is still very quiet here. I have just had some customers who were so embarrassed at the shortness of their journey – about four hundred yards – that they gave me a tenner and told me to keep the change.
Obviously I accepted with enthusiasm, although really it wasn’t all that short by taxi standards, it is astounding how idle people can be. They all cite the hill and bad knees as an excuse. I don’t try and reassure them that they are not idle really. Sometimes it is difficult not to suggest that they go on diets and offer their knees some relief. In any case I am a stone-thrower in a glass house, because I can be shockingly idle myself given a decent opportunity and a bottle of wine.
We did not get up until almost lunchtime, talking of idle. After that Mark took my taxi and the trailer and went off to haul some firewood, and I stayed at home to do house things.
I did a huge pile of ironing and cleaned Mark’s taxi out for him, since obviously he does not have time to do this sort of thing any more.
I felt very virtuous when I had done this, because it was unassailable evidence that I was a Good And Caring Person. Also it was horrid, with dusty seats and mud on the carpets, even though he hasn’t had the dogs in it lately.
When I had finished I re-made the children’s beds with the newly pressed sheets. Their rooms are now ready for their return, which is further evidence of my virtue. Sometimes I forget until absolutely the last minute, because they are on a separate floor of the house where I don’t go, but since I am in sole charge of housework at the moment I am doing it thoroughly whilst I try and work out an escape plan.
I think I have had enough of housework.
I washed Mark’s overalls and hung them to dry. I cleared up picnic debris and made tonight’s picnic. I emptied the ashes from the bottom of the stove and hoovered the living room, which jobs go naturally together.
I usually bring the wood in when I do this, but I didn’t today. We have been having something of a firewood crisis, because the current log supply has turned out to be still too damp to burn well.
This is horrid when it happens. Damp logs are heavy and smoky and tarry. They don’t give out as much heat, and the fire keeps going out. I have had so many cold-house crises lately that I have taken to wearing jumpers underneath my T-shirts as underwear.
This is not a hardship, because they are my favourite soft cashmere-and-silk, and they are the nicest thing in the world to wear, even though they have got to be hand washed. I can wear them and feel secretly looked-after, like the Queen probably does. I am glad I don’t live in her house. I bet it is colder than ours even when the fire has gone out.
Mark’s friend Ted had a shed full of dry timber that he had just planned to turn into a bonfire, so Mark offered to save him the trouble and went to haul it back today. He has filled the trailer, and has got to load some more tomorrow. It is thoroughly dry, and will last us for weeks and maybe it will give the rest of the logs a decent chance to dry out a bit. This is an enormous relief. It is not nice when the fire goes out, as if an important bit of the house has died.
We will be all right now.
Happy birthday Number Two Daughter.
