Kitchen, Kip and Kids

Day four in the house without a kitchen. Day four of a total of three weeks and there are four plasterers getting to work for a second day on the concrete box that was our kitchen. It will be worth it but at the moment we are living higgledy-piggledy out of a chaotic dining room and feasting on a range of microwaveable food. It’s an adventure...

Respite from this came when I stayed at my best friend’s house the other night. We went out for dinner and to see a film for her birthday- meat platter at Bodeans followed by The Social Network and half a bag of jelly babies...and then a taxi back to hers and a hot water bottle encased in a fluffy pig cover, a dark room, silence and sleep...blessed, uninterrupted sleep for nearly seven hours.

The sleep deprivation for me continues apace. Not every night but most I am woken up by a small person requiring a nappy change or reassurance that the monsters in his room won’t get him. This is all fine in theory but I seem to be lurching from one bout of exhaustion and fluey illness to the next. Add in the workload of the final year of my degree, visiting prospective schools for Sam for next year, and now no kitchen and I am really struggling.

The bus journey home from my friend’s house yesterday morning was full of kids on their way to school. Normally I have my head firmly in a book or newspaper, and this was no different yesterday, but then I could hear the sound of ‘Automatic’ by the Pointer Sisters drifting up towards the end of the bus where I sat. Looking down the bus, trying to work out where it was coming from, I spied two boys aged about 12, sharing a set of headphones and actually singing along to this eighties classic...Aw! ...quite innocently enjoying a good tune, no gangsta rap in sight. The kids (of today) are alright.

I try and go out once every few weeks for a grown up night out, by myself to a gig or poetry reading, or for dinner and a film with friends. Although I have too much studying and not enough hours in the day to get it all done, on top of chronic sleep deprivation and the normal extra stuff that comes with being a single parent, a night out is pretty important. Add in a good night’s sleep and it really is better than going clubbing used to be...oh yes, categorically, no contest.

The fluffy pig left a deep impression on me- not literally- that would have to be the other way round-and I found myself in Boots yesterday afternoon buying a fluffy hot water bottle cover. I am converted...a fluffy warm lump at the end of the bed to warm my toes on as I go to sleep is blissful. I wish it could be a cat but allergy prevents this- at least I am guaranteed it won’t suddenly decide to go elsewhere.