Monday 22 October 2012

Away and back, and some mood management

Here I sit, yawning away. It is time for bed, after some dozing on the couch. Yesterday I returned from looking after grandchildren, while my daughter flew off to earn some wherewithal. I am weary, and not as young as I used to be. The driving hither and thither is quite tiring. As is the child-minding.

My hands are scratched, from playing with her most beguiling kitten. He is very sweet, and makes me think I need a kitten myself. It would be lovely to sit and stroke a purring kitten.  But first I need to investigate the near-by-ness of catteries.

In between playing with the kitten, caring for the children and feeding them, and coping with an over-sensitive smoke alarm, I pulled out lots of weeds, and pondered the waywardness of heredity. I have always loved plants, and enjoyed gardening, and growing as many species as could possibly be squeezed into the available space. Not so my children, who display a total indifference to such pursuits. How can this be? Whose genes leapfrogged over mine and knocked them off course?

More child-minding looms, and I feel tired in anticipation, and in the consequent displacement of my regular activities.

Fernando is back, for week 11. He has been painting. Perhaps age is withering me, as I feel somewhat peeved to have him plonk his paintbrushes into my kitchen sink. He has already filled my clothes baskets,  and my buckets, and used my little sharp knives for this and that, as well as my nice French tea towels to wipe paint off things. There are things that I am not good at protesting about, and these are amongst them. The inconvenience of not having a clothes basket in which to carry the washing to the clothesline is, of course, neither here nor there. I gave up, and put it all into the clothes dryer instead. My carbon footprint must be heavy right now.

Some wild and heavy rain pelted down late this afternoon and much of it came in underneath the kitchen door. It took a lot of mopping up. This happened just after I had cleaned out my sinks and scrubbed off the paint residues. I then spent some time removing books and CDs from the shelves and cleaning off the dust. Again! Then I vacuumed some of the dust from the furniture. It is an exciting life, moving book by book, CD by CD, wiping off the dust, traipsing back to the kitchen to rinse the sponge, and so on and so forth.

It must be nice to be in control of one's life. Perhaps in my next incarnation I could create a greater nuisance.




3 comments:

Frances said...

And so say all of us to "create a greater nuisance".
But, I plan to practise it a little in this life in order to be prepared to do it really well in the next.
I wish you strength, Persiflage. What a trial it has all been.

Elephant's Child said...

I am in awe. By this stage the psycho b--ch from hell would have emerged. Or perhaps I would be under the bed, velcroed to the carpet and refusing to come out.

Jan said...

The vet near bottle shop at Stanmore station has minded DIL's little Abyssinian many times over the last ten or more years. I could get more details for you.

I do hope the renovations clear soon. I find that sort of mess very unsettling. I love my grandchildren deeply, but there are times when I dread the next lot of child minding.