Getting up this morning was not nice.
I made coffee whilst Mark groped blindly and sleepily around trying to find clothes and his toothbrush, and then he bravely went off to work to put some more numbers on our bank statement.
I had been vaguely prepared for the dogs to insist on following their early morning out-of-bed-then-emptying-and-breakfast routine to the letter, regardless of the time, but fortunately they were having absolutely none of it. Three hours in bed was, as far as they were concerned, definitely insufficient for a growing dog’s needs, and they had got no intention of going anywhere at all. I think one of them thumped a tail encouragingly as we hauled ourselves wearily downstairs.
I waved Mark off and then regret to say with no spirit of solidarity whatsoever, put myself immediately, and with profound relief, back to bed with the dogs, who still had not budged, where I stayed for another three hours until it was time to take Lucy to work.
Obviously even six hours sleep with a break in the middle is not really enough, mostly because over the weekend we have not been particularly generous with our personal sleeping allowance and by today we were starting to get a bit confused and grumpy.
I managed to organise shopping for food for Ritalin Boy, who eats more fruit and vegetables than all of our household put together, and therefore needs special consideration, and washed and tidied up and went off to work, where I spent the day sitting on the taxi rank sewing name labels into Oliver’s new socks and drinking tea in the hope that the caffeine content would improve matters, which it didn’t.
I don’t know how Mark managed to get through the day at all, because by the time he got back he was exhausted. What was more, we had been home for about ten minutes when Number One Son-In-Law arrived with two excited small boys in tow.
If I were him I would be unequivocally overjoyed to be heading off to the peace and quiet of an oil rig. Ritalin Boy was terribly excited to be visiting his grandparents, and equally angry and upset to be deprived of his parents, and this was detectable in his general level of volume. He had been in the house for about five minutes before I was longing for some melodious chamber music and an armchair, preferably with a brandy.
Number One Son-In-Law has been absolutely wonderful with them all week. They have been on fun fairs and playing at night stalking games in the woods, and building dens and generally having boy adventures. I have not got anything like that sort of energy, and after he had departed we shoved both of them through the shower to get rid of the remaining traces of whatever they have been doing and also the coating of sticky with which they both seemed to be fairly thoroughly glazed. We solved the noise problem by getting Oliver to show Ritalin Boy how to use a Nintendo, which kept him fascinated and reasonably muted for ages whilst we cleared up the colossal pile of detritus caused by the influx of their luggage. We put them in bed with a sigh of exhausted relief at about half past ten, and retired downstairs to finish clearing up and drink a glass of wine.
We talked about the day then, and I think it is likely that Mark is not going to accept this job. He has agreed to a fortnight’s mutual trial, and it may not be entirely fair to reach an opinion after just two days without a sleep in between them, but things are not promising. He feels that the company needs to invest a very great deal of money in themselves, and that probably they haven’t got it.
I think that if a company can’t afford to spend money on themselves then they certainly can’t afford Mark, who does not come cheap, and given that the salary has yet to be negotiated I think that probably they will all come unstuck at that point.
I don’t mind what he decides to do. He is far too busy to have a job anyway.
It is all very well to have a job: but it means we haven’t had enough time to sleep.
Maybe a rethink is necessary.
LATER NOTE: Mark went to bed, and after I had finished this I took the dogs for a last potter around the Library Gardens. It was still and clear and everywhere smelled of new-mown grass and the sharp smell of summer leaves, and a group of boys were hanging around on the benches, laughing and enjoying one another’s company. I was half looking for the meteor shower, which I didn’t see: but the night sky was like black glass. The whole of the universe was there in its unfathomable splendour, brilliant and awesome and strange: and I gave myself a sore neck gazing upwards and felt the whole joy of being tiny and insignificant in a vast indifferent eternity.
I stopped worrying about any of it then. Nothing that I have written about matters in the slightest. In the blink of an eye I will be gone and for ever forgotten. In the meantime we will do what we like and make our lives as splendid as we can.
How unspeakably wonderful it is to be alive. I just thought I would mention that before I go to bed.
