Style matters... well mutters anyhow!

The kitchen has landed – woo hoo!! I arrive home from work at 6pm and see the boxes of urban crème (pronounced to sound like an inner city funeral centre). The dining room is chockfull of boxes – electrical goods, cabinets and worktops piled high jamming the door open and going back as far as I can see. I wander to the kitchen and yet more boxes assault me but that is nothing to the next wave of attack…

Out of the bathroom wanders Daddy Shortlegs. He is wearing a pyjama top, slippers and socks - nothing else. It’s not a sight for sore eyes. Unless you want sore eyes, that is. The dangly collection of unmentionables clanks off towards his room and I instinctively wash my hands like Lady Macbeth only I wonder if my mind will ever be clean of that image. He’s unhappy because in a zealous rush to put everything breakable out of the kitchen before the old cupboards were removed, Rich has put the plates in the dining room which is now inaccessible. Having no plates to Jack is a catastrophe – how will he eat? To me, having no plates is an opportunity for sneaky takeaways. I wonder why he is mithering as he has taken to buying readymade sandwiches and microwaveable meals, eating from the plastic or heating up soup and eating it from the saucepan – it’s a classy life chez nous.

The washing up still takes an hour-and-a-half. He washes the plastic containers. He washes the plastic film you remove before heating. He washes tins that contained tuna which he adds to whatever salad-in-a-bowl he has purchased. He only buys Tesco’s finest range so there goes any inheritance the boys were expecting.

I sit at my computer for a while – Tetris might get my mind off the vision, but no, a collection of oddly shaped items bobbing slowly down the screen does not have that effect and I am relieved when at eight o’clock a colleague calls. Despite my protestations that the doorbell is for me, he has pushed his way slowly and inexorably like a muttering mass of lava towards the front door. He now has on some sort of support tights (pop socks) as well as a shirt and white shorts. We consider he may need a bag and a big hat to finish off the outfit.

At ten o’clock I hear him coming up the stairs towards the study, rocking sideways on each step as usual. He is dressed now in a towelling dressing gown but over the tied belt is a leather one. He has dark socks over his stockings and a pair of sharp black shoes finish the ensemble – he is trying them on for tomorrow’s funeral I expect. It’s another fashion disaster; his belted gown makes him look like some medieval librarian or a refugee from Hogwarts’ retirement village.

‘Rich up?’ he asks

‘Up? No, he’s not in yet from work.’

‘But we’re going to this funeral. It’s quarter past ten.’

‘At night.’ I say emphasising each word - it’s dark out and we are next to a big window but he is convinced it is morning.

‘Everyone’s been up in the night’, he says ‘your friend came’.

‘That was two hours ago, eight pm. It was still light.’

He wanders off and I am not sure he knows what time it is but I will try to enjoy myself as it is definitely later than he thinks!