All by myself...

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I bet you've been wondering where I've been the last few days?  To be honest, I'm asking myself much the same question, and here's the reason why.

The husband has been away for the past week, only returning last night on a filthy motorbike with matching Gor-Tex accessories courtesy of a large puddle up a mountain in Portugal.  He's had a whale of a time, and judging by the look of the straining bike wear, much beer was drunk.  He has done this week away for the past three years or so, and every year I imagine all the wonderful things I am going to do without him here.  My needs are small as you know ladies, and the virtual list in my head usually involves:

Good books
Early nights
A few lost pounds
A complete clear out of every cupboard and drawer in the house.

As at 7.00pm last night, I hadn't even scratched the surface and I'm pleased to report that I actually achieved the following:

One good book
Not a single early night
Two pounds gained
One kitchen cupboard and the husband's pants drawer cleaned out (this was fairly empty when I started, completely empty once I'd finished)

Other things I achieved were:

A charity dog walk of epic proportions
Five nights out (over 50% of the nights available so there was still room for improvement)
Two sleepovers.  One in a bed and one on a sofa
Two sleepovers for other friends here
A complete Philippa Gregory box set (what I don't know about the Wars of the Roses is now not worth knowing)

But the biggest issue I have when the husband goes away is the fact that apart from the two four legged toilet brushes I share my house with, I am on my own.  Every squeak and creak has me sitting bolt upright in bed thinking that someone is in the house.  Now we all know that this is completely irrational behaviour, and as I am fortunate to have two woofers who would bark at an over zealous autumnal leaf, never mind strangers on their manor, I know that I have a pretty good warning system in place should any ne'er-do-well decide that my house looks like it needs 'doing over'.

Last year, I asked the husband whether he could put a lock on our bedroom door which might have made me feel more relaxed.  Well apparently, I have the wrong type of door for a lock, so this year I came up with the brilliant idea of wedging a rather long spirit level against the door handle.  This excellent piece of engineering thoroughly enjoyed multi tasking for me this week, but I'm sure that deep down, it really hated being stuck at a 45 degree angle.  I can just imagine it screaming, 'But I need to be level - the clue's in the bloody name woman!'

Anyway, the beloved husband is back once more, and waking up this morning after a full night's sleep after nine fragmented ones was an absolute joy.  He was getting ready for work and telling me that he'd been very clever this year with his clothes.  Apparently he'd taken old t-shirts and all of his underwear and simply thrown them away at the end of each day.  I was overjoyed at this, as it meant minimum washing and ironing for yours truly.

'Yes', he continued, 'I'll have to buy more pants today, but not to worry, I left one really old pair in the drawer for today',

Aah....the drawer.

Well you're not borrowing mine sunshine...



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