A Really Lovely Nice Thing

Something kind of really nice happened today.   I got three and a bit hours all to myself.   It wasn’t bedtime.  It wasn’t a Guinness book of records shower or bath, nor was I in the supermarket on Christmas eve.  

The boys were frog marched off for a bit of work experience.

I’m all for child labour.  There’s nothing like it!

I jest.  I jest.

I’ll start at the two beginnings.   The first beginning is, for those of you living under a boulder, it is the summer holidays from school and Irish mammies everywhere have a little bald patch on their heads from pulling their hair out.   Have a look inside their recycling bin if you think you’re hard enough and you can count up the eleventeen empty bottles of Sav. Blanc or my own personal fave, Pinot Grigio.  

Do you see what I’m getting at?

Stress.  And lots of it.  From not having any time to ourselves at all in the last five and a bit weeks.  Do you see?

I go to bed at night and my mind races with all of the thoughts.  All of them.  It’s horrible.  It’s fascinating.  It’s frustrating.   All of the thoughts I didn’t get to write on paper during the day, come out to play in my brain at night time.

They say things like, “you didn’t pay any attention to me today, so you didn’t.   And I thought you loved me.”

Stuff like, “fek off so and do the dishes.  Don’t forget the hoover whatever you do.  And god forbid you neglect the swimming pool!  I’ll just sit here.  All by myself.  Until night time.   Then I’ll come out.”

Another really bratty thought process likes to pipe up around about then.  “That email in your drafts folder has only been there for a month!  You’d better do something about it.”

And on and on it goes like a jayzus washing machine in my head.

Do I sound a bit manic to you?  I do to myself.   That’s what no time alone to myself does to me.

So Mister Husband did a lovely thing today and took them all off to the office.   Even though I did protest. “No.  You can’t possibly take them all into the office with you.  However will you get any work done?  How will anyone get any work done.   No.  You’re grand.   I’m grand.  I’ll park them in front of the telly box.  Be grand.”

The big feker wasn’t having any of it and he carted them all off at 2.15pm with strict instructions for me to leave the dishes and stuff there and stay away from Facebook and Gilmore Girls and get some work done.

Ok. So.  When you put it like that.

At this very moment in time they are all due to come crashing through the door in precisely ten minutes.  Me nerves are a jangling again.

But the second beginning is, the boys are all saving up for a computer. 

All of them.   Well, two anyway.  The oldest and the youngest.

Christ on a keypad.   I know.

I blame the oldest.  He’s gone money mad.  First of all, it was all about saving the pennies for Rosslare and then when he got wind of the holiday fund I began about 6 weeks ago where I save a euro for them each week, his tune changed.

He moved onto the big guns.  Onto a computer.   A purple one.  His headboard is decorated with orange sticky notes and onto them he has carefully printed out the computer spec of his pleasing.   He also has a savings plan of sorts outlined.

He’s also going mad for work.  Which is why he hopped, skipped and jumped into the office today.   Thrilled with himself. 

He has offered to make me my coffee whenever I want one.   For twenty cents a cup.  The dishes and cutlery shake when they see him approach because they know their lounge time on the draining board is done for.   He dries them all and puts them away.   For fifty cents.   He wants to make the dinner.   He wants to help with the laundry.   All of it at a price.

So far he has earned ten euros from his work experience.  He shreds and files stuff in the office.   He has been given an introduction to AutoCAD.

It’s great to have a hunger for money I suppose.   He owes me an awful lot!

Anyway, that’s the lovely really nice thing that happened to me today.  It’s perked me right up.  I got loads of stuff done.  None of it dishes.   And I might even go for a run.

That’s been a while too.    

Empty Inbox.  Still draft email though