No, I didn’t get to go on a girls night out. Mary did. She’d had a rotten week and had thought about cancelling but fortunately I was at home on Friday so I had Violet for a couple of hours while Mary and Rose slept. (Dont panic Guv I made up for the time!)
She came back completely refreshed, a little tipsy and had a great night out. What’s more the smile lasted all night and well into Saturday morning.
What more could you ask for?
Everyone knows that I am passionate about my rugby. For nine months of the year Saturdays are for Rugby. Mary and I met at a rugby ball, a fair proportion of a wedding guests were from the rugby club, three of our ushers were on my team, Rose’s godfather plays rugby.
You can see how integral it is to our lives. Rugby even helps keep our marriage on the straight and narrow. Mary has often told the ladies at the church that one of the reasons I am so relaxed is due to the fact that I can go out and be very physical on a Saturday.
Thursday evening training is much the same. Usually, if you’re not a first team player, you get to be cannon fodder for the first team. I dont mind this as my operation last summer, the bith of my second and my increasing work load has kept me out of the gym and most weeks out of training so I desperately need the fitness. But it also soon descends into an everyone against the first team match with plenty of digs being dished out and plenty of bruises received.
This week was no different. Even my Chiropractor commented on how bashed up I was. I explained that training is not training if you dont train how you intend to play!
Thank goodness, she still loves me and bought me a card. Thank goodness that we both agree that although we buy each other cards on Valentines Day we dont believe in getting striped up for flowers, not that I buy them often anyway, chocolates, last time I bought a small box of 8 chocolate hearts for Valentines they cost me £20, or go out for dinner.
We both agree that Valentines Day is an opportunity for the great commercial marketing machine to get us all intoa frenzy and spend our hard earned cash on things that are three times the price of what they were yesterday and will be tomorrow.
However I am still thankful that we both remember that it is about saying “I’m still in love with you” and the card’s are nice to.
BTW my card cost over £5 and I’m sure it will be £1.50 tomorrow! It’s a good job the bar of fruit and nut was on special offer otherwise I’d have had no money left for my lunch.
This weekend my girls have been on a mini break to Nanny’s house. We told them it was a holiday especially for them but truthfully it was so that we could catch up on some much needed sleep. Well Mary could, I unfortunatey dont sleep much.
Now Mary keeps telling me how much she was missing them but I thought I was doing ok. That is until I turned the key in the lock when I got home from work and Rose came running up to gvie me a great big hug. Well I’m not one for public displays of emotion. Putting in blunty I dont cry in public. I firmly believe that if you’re going to have a boo then you take yourself off somewhere quiet, get it over and done with and then get on. It’s probably one of those self preservation things you learn at boarding school. Anyway even I could feel my eyes getting wet as I welled up with joy that they were back.
It’s at this point that I am in awe of those men and women that have no choice and have to work away from their family. I realise that there is no way I would chose to be apart from my wife and kids for any length in time.
So I guess that this is a thank you that although we’ve had to consider the possibility of working away from home in the past I have never had to
Can you believe it? The girls are away at Nannies house so Mary’s had the opportunity of a lay in and the catch busts on the bathroom door with me the wrong side of it. 20 mins, stuck in the bathroom. It means I’ve been in there over half an hour and I’m never in the bathroom that long in the mornings. There just isnt the time. It’s one of the things they teach you at boarding school. How to get clean quickly without missing bits. To make matters worse my Harry Houdini impression has woken Mary and now I’m going to get a kickin’
However there is a funny moment to this story and I wish I’d have been on the otherside of the door with the video camera. There I am trying to work something into the catch to force it back and I hear from the other side of the door “Stand back - I’ll rush it!”. Now those of you who know my wife will appreciate how ludicrous this actually is. For starters she’s 4′ 9″, just, without heels, an inch shorter and we could get a disability allowance from the government. Appraently if you’re under 4′ 8″ you’re officially a midget! Get that! Also she’s not what you would call Mrs Universe. Gentle is the word commonly used. So the thought of her rushing the door had me in fits.
Finally I managed to get the catch sprung with the aid of the nail cutters and some clever work removing the handle.
It was only later when I was talking to my father-in-law about it that he pointed out that it was a good job it was me and not Mary or one of the girls when I wasn’t here.
There’s obviously a reason I overslept that today and didn’t rush to work.