"Mummy", says Caitlin, "I wish I was a bird". That's nice dear I said, sidestepping a recycling bin and the strange pile of furry hair clippings that creates a miniscule drift outside the local hairdressers. "Why's that?" "Because then I could poo over everything", she said winsomely.
Ieuan was far in the distance in full flight mode wearing his Buzz Lightyear jetpack wings. He is not currently answering to the name Ieuan. He has to be referred to as "Buzz with a belt", in reference to Buzz's utility belt, which in keeping with most of the other gadgets in the Hobbis Household (or Downton Shabby as I often call it), doesn't do much more than light up and make a noise.
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| Ask yourself: What Would Anthea Do? |
Back from school, I ponder what to do with the rest of the day. The Husband is back doing things with digits in the Big Smoke. Having ascertained that I have no PPI claims and am unlikely to fall off a ladder, I consider making an enormous Shepherd's Pie for tea but worry that I have not got the Right Dish. Having the Right Dish is very important in my mind. I have a selection of plastic round bowls (previously filled with microwavable Christmas puddings) and a Jane Asher Lasagne Dish. None seem fit for purpose so I dismiss the idea which will no doubt return during the post-school arsenic hours to haunt me. The Husband does not worry, of course, about having the Right Dish. Ingredients are chucked into pans with aplomb and appear steaming on plates as tasty, albeit usually spicy, meals.
I consider clothes shopping for a new winter coat with my mother. This would be a dangerous enterprise because my mother would automatically try to steer me towards anoraks and worse, in colours seemingly offered to ladies over 65 as their most likely preference, viz "eau de nil" (a strange, vapid, bluey green colour) or what I call "beigey beige" - a light to middling Cuprinol type tone. My mum loves her anoraks. To me there's something ever so slightly utilitarian about them. Who wants to go about looking as if you're about to tape up the scene of a crime?
I mull over the possibility of doing some housework. I have a natty assortment of rubber gloves and a vat of Barry Scott's finest (oh, yes, I know how to make the morning go with a Cillit Bang...sorry) so I could in theory remove limescale off anything from a tap to a BMW (although the latter might be grounds for divorce).
Instead, I make myself a coffee and select my favourite episode of "Perfect Housewife" (cough) to watch whilst asking the perenniel question I always ask myself when my lack of Domestic Goddess-ness washes over me. "What would Anthea Turner do?"
