Sunny afternoon...

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The husband went off on a jolly this weekend, along with some other gentlemen of a similar age.

He had sold it to me a couple of weeks ago, describing it as 'just a bit of a motorbike event', and I expected him to be missing for just a few hours, eventually coming home with part of his bike in a rucksack having lost it on a tight corner.

So watching him get ready for it on Friday morning, I watched as t-shirts were packed, then a toothbrush, a change of underwear and then...a tent.

'Exactly how long are you going for?' I asked gesturing towards the tent.

Well it turned out that he was leaving on the Saturday morning (around seven hours after we crawled through the door after Henley Regatta) and would be staying the night.  This was because there was live music, a bar and 'other entertainment'.  I didn't ask him to quantify the 'other entertainments' but bearing in mind it was a bikers' event, you can bet your bottom dollar that it didn't involve Hook-a-Duck or Punch and Judy.  He reckoned that he probably would be coming home towards the end of Sunday (at around Poldark time - we no longer refer to that time as 9.00).  

At least this explained the tent and the toothbrush, so waving him off on Saturday morning, I looked forward to a quiet weekend, most of which involved my best friend Mrs S and her dog Ralph.  We had arranged an overnighter at mine, with a pub visit, a night walk home when it was cooler and an early walk on Sunday morning to collect the abandoned car from the pub.  All sounds lovely, doesn't it...

But life rarely goes as planned when you are the parent of four young adults and my Saturday can be broken down as follows:

Ferrying around in the car : 4 hours
Clearing rooms : 2 hours
Unloading the dishwasher : best part of half a day overall
Dog walking : 3 hours
Pub with Mrs S : 43 minutes (this equates to one pint of cider and half a ploughman - I did ask Mrs S whether she'd prefer the top or bottom of a ploughman if push came to shove, and as she's vegetarian, we decided that I would fare better with the bottom).

As Sunday dawned bright and early, Mrs S and Ralph left mine at 8.00am, after a lovely dawn walk with our woofers.

'I'm having a selfish lazy day', I said to her as she waved goodbye.

Famous.  Last.  Words.

An hour later, daughter number one messaged me.  'I'm on my way over'.

Fast forward to 4.00, and I have her and Del Boy, and daughter number two with Jolly Sock Man plying me with drink and demanding food like four blackbird chicks.  The husband chose to turn up around then, and removing his RoboCop outfit, he said to me, 'Had a relaxing time while I've been gone?'

Well lovely readers, I didn't know whether to hug him, or sock him round the mush with a half defrosted slab of belly pork.

Oh decisions, decisions...




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