Another Week

We have survived another week. This Friday will mark an entire school summer holiday's worth of staying at home. And as much as I care for my fellow man and friends and family, very soon my feelings of care and compassion for pretty much anyone are going to fly out the window and quite frankly it will be every man for himself. I know Anne Frank survived for years in a room smaller than our bedroom living in fear for her life, and I am being very pathetic, but clearly she was a far better woman than I. I'll admit it, I'm weak, pampered, entitled and spoilt, but I just want the children to LEAVE THE HOUSE (without me). I feel if I just keep saying it over and over and over and over and over again, like a tired toddler who doesn't like the answer they've been given the first 400 times, (or indeed like the tired nearly five year old who just had a half an hour tantrum over not wanting to go to bed), I will eventually get my way. It has worked many, many times for the tired toddlers so it's worth a shot.

This week there is slime everywhere.  Child number four has been at the kitchen table like the nutty professor squirting shaving foam and pouring liquid and glue in to a big bowl and cackling madly as she stirs fervently trying to get the correct consistency. We have used every suitable container we can find to house all of her many creations and there are sticky remnants of each of them covering most of the kitchen, a number of sinks and most frustratingly, a patch of our playroom ceiling. I have almost lost the ability to care anymore. Things are so lax here, the same child came to me yesterday to tell me that she'd left it too late to get to the loo and then was befuddled by the buttons on her onesie so just had to sit on the loo and wee through it. I wasn't to worry though, as she didn't get any on the floor and had had the foresight to take off the onesie after she'd relieved herself, and put it in the washing machine. She is going to be 8 years old this summer. I didn't even get cross. I was just grateful there wasn't a load of wee on the floor for me to clean up.

HOWEVER, even though I just want to sit here and moan on and on (and on and on), I was determined to be more positive this week. SO to that end I shall recommence my Reasons To Be Cheerful and look to the upsides of Lockdown...

RTBC Numero Uno - No unexpected visitors

Eleventy billion years ago BC (before Corona) when we were allowed out and people were allowed in, and I had a working Mac keyboard and trips to the cinema weren't a distant dream, our internet stopped working again. The fear of it never coming back on again after the Dark Ages period we had post Storm Dennis, meant I wasted no time in ringing BT to report the fault and find out how long my suffering would last this time. As it turned out, the half an hour I spent on the phone to them was a total waste of my time as, in a shocking lack of communication, it turns out some engineers were just fixing a fault further up the road and would be turning it back on again after a few hours. Even so, a BT Engineer dutifully rang me a few hours later and announced that he would be coming to check out my fault. He was but minutes away. I jumped up, assessed the kitchen - quickly cleared the 'waiting area' above the dishwasher in to the sink, shoved the shoes away, removed the piles of washing and swept a bit to make it look like a 'normal' house. He came in and I showed him to the home hub and telephone line and said it was all ok now and he could pop off on his merry way as he'd had a wasted journey. He replied that he couldn't leave yet as he needed to see where the BT line came in to the house as the job had been logged 'on the system' and he had to check it all out before he could sign it off. I begged him not to see it and that we could all just pretend and move on. But he was adamant that he couldn't leave without a look.

The problem was, that our BT line was housed within the 'Scary Cupboard' thusly named because it is, 99% of the time, a fairly scary place. The scary cupboard contains the hatch to the cellar, 455 coats (approx) 25,000 pairs of shoes (rounding down), sleeping bags, roller skates, back packs and what I might politely refer to as miscellaneous items but could also be called, a load of crap. At various times I have possessed the zeal required to sort out the 4 foot by 8 foot space in to some semblance of order and sense. However, over time, the cupboard reverts back to its natural state and at the time of the BT visit, it was entirely inaccessible to anyone but the cat. A lot of the depth to the mess was coats - my eldest child is the lucky recipient of many fabulous hand me down coats, as well as a keen collector herself, and at last count, possessed somewhere in the region of 22. When she has finished wearing one, she opens the cupboard and just chucks it on to the assembled heap, so by the time I opened the door to display my hidden shame, the under-layer of bags and detritus was now covered in a huge pile of coats so we were met with a solid wall of 'stuff' which measured about 3 foot deep. 

Naturally I made light of the situation and the engineer tried to assure me that he sees things like this 'all the time' which was one of the biggest lies I think anyone has ever told. He went out to his van and I set about trying to dig him a path in to the deep dark recesses of the cupboard, where the BT box lived. A few items in and I realised that there was *quite* a pungent smell emanating from the heap in front of me. It was sadly and very unmistakably, the delightful smell of cat urine. Yes, there can be no finer or ever lasting smell, than the piss of a cat. There was nothing I could do at this point, to mask the dreadfulness of the situation, so I just kept moving things in to the kitchen and as he walked back in, I had to confess that not only was I going to be unable to clear the floor sufficiently, but that whilst he was in there, he was going to be able to enjoy the heady scent of old cat wee. AGAIN, the lying and wonderful man assured me 'it was fine'. Mercifully he was very long of leg so he managed to stride over the remaining obstacles in one deft stride and set to work. I stood watching him at the sink, frantically washing up to try and prove that I wasn't totally inept and trying to make him a cup of coffee from some old ground coffee I found in the freezer which he would have to take black as we had no milk. Again, he assured me it was fine and managed a very polite few sips. I gave him the very best customer feedback his feedback survey allowed.

Luckily, the humiliation of that visit prompted me in to action and I can happily report that the scary cupboard is now only scary thanks to there being no natural daylight, quite a few cobwebs and a number of holes in the plasterboard ceiling where K attempted to find the source of a leaky shower. The source of the feline effluence was revealed to be a RipCurl backpack which has now been disposed of and you can easily access any coat you fancy wearing because you can actually walk inside the cupboard! I was so pleased with my progress I actually went so far as to retrieve the man's mobile number from the home phone and was contemplating texting him with an update re the smell and accessibility.  I spent a good few days being on the cusp of a text but I worried it would seem a bit odd (and also I couldn't get the cupboard to look that good in the photo I wanted to send along with it). Although I'm not sure what is worse, him thinking of me as some weird desperate housewife sending unsolicited pics of my 'scary cupboard' or worrying that he tells all the other BT engineers about it not knowing that it's now a beacon of coat cupboard normality. (ish)

To that end, my RTBC is that there is something wonderfully liberating about the absolute certainty that no one is going to 'pop over' and catch us in our natural habitat. When I know someone is coming, I obviously make sure that all the surfaces are clear, the floor is swept, the endless washing piles waiting to be sorted are stored out of sight upstairs, there is bleach in the loo, the shoe piles are stuffed in the scary cupboard and basically we look, to all intents and purposes, like a very normal family in a normal house. I'm lucky that I do not suffer with the burdens of OCD or Neatness and I am fully able to live in quite a muddle without it affecting me to any great extent therefore people 'popping over' can discover us in varying degrees of chaos - from 'under control ' to 'totally losing the battle'. I am easily able to go to bed leaving a mess downstairs because I feel I'll be more able to mentally deal with it in the morning. I know of some people who can't leave the house or go to bed if there is so much as a dirty cup on the worktop. I would never ever leave the house or get enough sleep if that was the case here, with no cleaner, seven of us in one house and me (formerly) working during most school hours, the housekeeping is done on a triage basis - the most urgent is dealt with immediately and then the rest is left until it moves up the urgency list. Although if the children ever do leave the house without me again, I now have no work to do so maybe once we're released, I can transform in to the type of person who welcomes unexpected guests in to a beautifully fragrant and tidy house with proper coffee and milk for them to drink.


RTBC Numero Dos - Clothing liberation

Fairly quickly the fun of wearing my pink velour loungewear wore thin and actually even though wearing your pyjamas all day sounds fun, it begins to feel squalid and a bit grotty a few days on, so I have now moved on to my clothing liberation phase. I am wearing things in my wardrobe that I would normally worry about wearing in the outside world or only wear with a jacket or cardigan to cover my arms/hide under. Dresses, skirts and tops I have rarely worn are suddenly experiencing a renaissance and are no longer gathering dust in my wardrobe. I have even started tucking my tops in to skirts (I am morbidly afraid of anyone noticing my rotund middle and saggy stomach so always ensure the area is fully covered by a top) and the older girls said I looked 'young' which was rather edifying. Having spent almost all of my years worrying how people see my body, it is rather lovely to just enjoy putting clothes on it and not having to worry about what anyone thinks. It's still quite the shock when I catch myself in the mirror, but I am hoping that I will get used to that as the time goes on.

My youngest is also enjoying being free of the confines of uniform and the freedom of self expression on the clothing front. At nearly 5, she already has an extremely strong sense of self and a desperation to look 'grown up'.  For the last few days she has been sporting skin tight jeggings and a leopard print training bra she managed to find somewhere in the piles of clothing that are stashed about the place. She even wears the bra back to front so the covering at the front is minimal. She cuts quite a dash on our bike rides around the village. Today she suddenly jumped off her bike and ran towards a visibility mirror outside someone's drive and wiggled her body so she could enjoy her scantily clad reflection. Coupled with her Bratz/Barbie/Pretty Women stylings, she has also never really been a fan of wearing knickers - ever since she started wearing them. Without anyone insisting that she absolutely has to don them, she hasn't worn any for weeks on end.

There have been many incidents of her legendary disdain for covering her nether regions. For her first ever ballet lesson when she was 2, we didn't have the required leotard so she wore a lovely pink ballet dress. With her hair up and her ballet shoes on, she looked precisely like a very cute little baby ballet dancer. It wasn't until the class started on their 'floor work' with legs spread out to the sides, that the other parents present, the ballet teacher and I realised she had chosen not to add the pants to the ensemble I had left out for her, and I in my haste to leave the house, hadn't checked. The ballet teacher let her keep her legs together after that and my eldest ran to the car to see if any of the emergency pairs we keep in there were still around (sadly not as it turns out). There have been countless more knicker free incidents - parties, playdates, park trips and even going to school without them on. It's ok when she's wearing tights as she delights in hiding the fact she is commando from any helpful TA who might try to be-knicker her with a spare pair (we are now the proud owner of countless pairs I one day hope to return to the school) but when she is in socks I do try and remember to check before she leaves the car.

So my RTBC is that not only do I get to be vaguely experimental in my daily looks, but I have also not had to worry about having a pair of spare pants on me for so long, I have almost forgotten what it feels like.


And with that, I shall have to leave you to your day/night and save more RTBC for my next post as I feel I have taken up more than enough of your time. It's highly unlikely we will be released any time soon, regardless of how many times I whine and wail about it, or however many times Dot tries to flash the locals, so I doubt they will lose their relevance. And that's absolutely FINE. Obviously.