324. Home alone (1)

Grayson had got a new job. This new job was, as all new jobs are, both exciting and tough. This new job involved working away from home. A lot. Which meant that Edira was alone at home during the week. Edira was not used to this. Edira was used to having her husband at home every night. And it came to her as a bit of a shock to find out that Grayson did actually do things around the house. Grayson had explained all this to Edira. He'd even written a list. Actually he'd written a schedule fit for a CEO: tasks listed with lengthy descriptions, sorted by days with times slots that could pass for a SNCF brochure, all sort of arrows sticking out and pointing in all directions with a - very - secret highlighter colour code. The details were obscure and meaningless, there were words like usual suppliers and quantities in kilogrammes and even temperature charts with red and green. Edira was a foreign language teacher and she knew how to make sense of stuff that most people did not have a clue about. But this? She had stuck the thing on the fridge - on the side of it as it was too large to fit at the front and had nodded.

'Don't worry! I'll be fine.'

It was now 11:42 PM on Wednesday night. Edira was pleased with herself because she'd just remembered it was bin night. It was freezing out there which had been handy as she had just given a nudge to the big wheel bin and it had smoothly slid its way down the driveway and stopped right on the edge of the pavement. No stress. No fuss. No straining of muscles. She'd hurried back inside away from the cold and wondering what kind of evening was ahead of her. Stupid series with a cup of that ridiculously expensive tea someone had given her for Christmas? A book and a toddy by the fire? Or was she going to scoff the box of Mon Chéri that sat in the cupboard still unopened . Grayson being away should not be all doom and gloom, all missing him and counting the days until he was back. She could make the most of her solo time. She was still trying to decide what to do when she paused by the fridge. The schedule was now on top of fridge, the magnet had given way under such a weighty document. She reached for it and for the orange highlighter. She was not sure if she'd find the take the bin out line (maybe her bin was the only one out there tonight?) but it would be truly satisfying to tick the box so she persevered.

She decided on tea (the overpriced stuff), a Netflix movie and the box of Mon Chéri. In fact one of the boozy chocolate was already melting in her mouth, the alcohol drenched cherry releasing a sweet and sharp flavour that instantly acted as the best anti-depressant in the world. She savoured the chocolate making as much fuss and as much noise as a wine taster on the Know Your Wine TV show. Suddenly something on the list ... in green and red ...

'Oh no! Oh s****!'

Something on that obscure document was suddenly making sense! She forgot about the bins. 

'S***! What to do?'

Should she highlight the item anyway and deal with the matter tomorrow? No. That was no good. This item was important (the red and the green). And it was also colour-coded as daily. Daily! And this was Wednesday night ... Edira decided that for this week and this week only, the daily item would be done from Wednesday. As for the time she was only ... 6 hours behind schedule. Surely it wouldn't matter that much.

One cuppa. One Mon Chéri. One Walker's choc chip shortbread. And she'd go out in the freezing night again. Grayson would be proud of her.