197. Back home (1/3)

I am sitting at the desk browsing useless rubbish on the family computer, pretending this is important and not just a pretext to avoid work.

My eyes drift to the clock (I will eventually have to do some work) and then, as I have plenty of time yet, to the calendar icon. Work is getting awfully dreary and I want to check how far off my holidays are.

OMG. I jump out of my seat. Then lean forward and peer into the tiny icon. Then move right back as if stung by a wasp and start pacing around the room like a lunatic.

That means in ... how many days? 4 days! No! .... No no no no no. No way can I cope with that right now. I grab hold of my fingers one by one and start counting like some struggling primary school kid. 4 days! In four days Miss Organiser will be back home and I simply am not ready to welcome her back. She'll have to move her flight forward, go spend a few days somewhere until I'm ready. 

I scratch my head as I pace around the room ans stare at the tiles. I rack my brains and make to go up the stairs to her bedroom. Then I do a U-turn and head back down. I cannot face her bedroom right now. It's been used as a store room, spare study room, a laundry room, sewing room, drying-flowers room, ... and ... and ... On top of everything when the big case came back all bursting to the seams we just dumped it up there.

I look at my watch. I am going to have to phone work and say I can't come in, something's come up. There must be a mistake somewhere. Something simple like the earth temporarily unable to adjust its speed as it revolves at breakneck speed around the sun. But what do you do? Who do you call to say excuse me but something's wrong with the planet's speed, could you adjust it please, because I need more time. 

Meanwhile I decide to call my usual helpline. 

'What's up? Anything the matter?' My husband sounds cheery and unworried. 

I explain.  

'Well, she's our first born. It'll be good to have her back. You don't need to have everything ready. She'll be jet-lagged anyway.'

My husband definitely doesn't get it and his inadequate reply triggers off the automatic-whingeing mode.

'You don't understand! I don't think I can cope. Can you imagine? She'll be up late, will come down and have some really weird breakfast, then she'll have a good moan about the oven not working and why haven't we fixed it, she'll be straight on the internet choosing one for us, next she'll go through the cupboards and say that we've run out of this and out of that and why haven't we been shopping? Then she'll spend the afternoon mixing cocktails and baking industrial quantities of cookies only to disappear with my car for the weekend and say things like how on earth did you manage without me, I just don't know ...'

There's some soft mumbling in the background.

'Are you talking to someone else or are you listening to me?'

'Just someone popping in. Sorry.'

I frown and it must be an audible frown because he makes a suggestion. 

'Do you want me to get her a job? We're desperate for people at the moment. She could start on Monday.'

...

I am speechless this time. If I say it is a brilliant idea and yes, she could start on Monday, does that make me a really bad mum? 

My husband seems to be in a slight hurry to get back to his work because he decides to end the conversation my favourite way.

'It's nice and sunny. How about I take you out for a cocktail in that new bar round the corner. We can sit outside and talk abut it.'

I let him go. I start counting on my fingers how many hours are left till cocktail hour.