Louisa Simmonds

The Joys of Cooking by Bucky Schwarz found on http://www.flickr.com

Now I’m not one to complain (!), but IT IS week four of both school holidays and the old man’s annual holiday from work.

And my living area appears to have been redistributed to accommodate that surplus of testosterone and morphed into a man shed. So much so that it no longer feels like my home.

The kitchen is a permanent bomb site – for some reason, neither man nor teenager has the ability to process the knowledge necessary to shut a cupboard door – there’s never any toilet roll and my sofa cushions keep being un-ceremoniously dumped on the floor, which upsets my OCD.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/200554504-003

And Kurt has been permanently affixed to the sofa, watching endless un-educational and crappy movies, since we returned from our road trip. In fact, the only time he drags his body off the sofa at all is to raid our depleting food stores like some rabid animal that appears to suffer from bursts of insatiable hunger every hour on the hour.

Let’s hope an apocalypse doesn’t happen any time soon, or we’re fucked.

My fridge is almost empty – apart from the usual motley leftovers that no-one ever touches, like quince and olives, and it’s only been five days since the last food shop.

And how many times is it reasonable to ask someone politely to clear away their plates before you deserve to be accused of nagging? I stick to my usual argument about the whole nagging debate is that surely I wouldn’t have to nag if they just did what I fucking asked them in the first place?

I’ve tried to unstick my son’s lanky body from my leather sofa with all sorts of tempting enticements, such as lunch out, the cinema or a trip into the city, but he has told me that he would rather stick needles in his testicles than be seen out with me – (a bit harsh!) – and feels he has done his filial duty for 2015 by coming on holiday with us.

The old man’s timing has been spot-on as always. Just when he’s finally donated some of his precious time away from work-fun to spend quality time with the spawn, he goes and fractures a rib this morning.

Don’t even ask. That man can pull a muscle changing programmes on the remote.

He has spent the day lying on the sofa, moaning and wincing every time I look in his direction witheringly, next to the high achiever of a son he helped create.

Funny how he can still seem to hotfoot it to the fridge for sustenance when I’m not looking, though.

Unable to work in the living room, aka the newly-styled man shed, I have been reduced to working in our tiny bedroom and have wasted almost a whole day searching the Internet for a small desk to work from, so that I can escape the carnage next door. I found the desk I wanted immediately, but in an effort to save money, I have since wasted six hours this afternoon of what could have been paid work hours trying to find a cheaper version.

Time management, like money management – resolutions for 2015.

All I can do is pray that the old man doesn’t manipulate our doctor – who he thinks has the hots for him – into giving him a sick note for next week, and that Kurt gets a life at some point soon.

I’ve been thinking about wine a lot.

#drinking #Wine #holidays #Home #Humor #teenagers