Well, where did it go? I haven’t written a blog since September 5th when I moaned about the packing chaos that was strewn about this house whilst THEY all got ready go back to their extortionate cost-centres for education: yes, my life still revolves around school/university terms. Like many mothers I imagine, I dream of the stress-less hours of September term time, an incentive to keep my cool when all around me I see the war-zone that has become our home, packed full of teens and twenty-something’s who will stay anywhere for a free breakfast and dinner. I dream of a house free from the soul-shrinking tunes and blather of Radio 1, free from unwashed frying pans and mugs in the sink (why can’t they put them in the dishwasher?), free from endless laundry piles to manage, and the freedom to put my toiletries back on my bathroom shelf knowing they will not be pilfered. Free from finding that someone had worn my bathing clothes for a late night swim, their regular activity of choice after a session at our local pub, so I have to put them on wringing wet and stretched for MY morning swim. Oh, and free to get in my own car and drive it at any moment of my choice. It became the most irritating factor of the summer: sharing a car with two daughters.
Whinging over, September hasn’t registered with me because I am renovating some accommodation for my 90-year old uncle who is moving here to live with us in October. The pressure is on, as it always is with builders. You just know that when they say ‘It will be ready in 6 weeks’, that they might as well have said ‘the cheque is in the post’. I have never had to ‘renovate’ accommodation in all our marital years and I am hopeless at it; our B&B room is still in the same sorry state as we saw it in June. Priorities on funds mean that the paint for the wall is still yet to be applied, the carpet bought, and so on. How I will ever have the spare time to cook/clean for B&B guests is another ‘great mystery’. My life has become so time-poor that I look as dishevelled as a Glastonbury reveller – I need an urgent trip to a hairdresser and I haven’t a clue what fashion items are trending this Autumn as I haven’t been to any shopping centres, or bought a magazine.
But as I write this, the Indian summer is at its peak; I switched my electric blanket on, on the 1st September and this week it has been switched OFF. I’m wearing a t-shirt top and flip flops (still) so I don’t have to worry about autumn fashion trends. The veg garden is still exploding, providing us with plenty of salad and tomatoes. Best of all, the pool is still in action and I found time to swim today after two whole weeks of neglecting it. I think it was Samuel Johnson who said ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’. Well, in my case, when I am tired of swimming, I’m probably close to collapse. Welcome October – I hope I shall have time to swim.
