So, last night I got back from exotic Sligo quite late. This morning, the Princess begged for a lift on the grounds that if she had to cycle she would be late and it was freezing. I acceded on the grounds that I have been away a lot and I still feel guilty about sending them out in the lashing rain when I had the car in Kilkenny earlier in the week. I said to the boys that I would give them a lift home from games club which is on in school after their Friday half day. End times can vary so I asked them to text me when it was over and I would come and get them.
A minor crisis at work meant that I didn’t get out of the office until about 2.30. I rang the boys a couple of times as I cycled home but no answer. Then Daniel called me and as I answered my phone died. I rang Mr. Waffle from my work phone (he got his number so long ago that I know it off by heart unlike any of the children’s numbers) and asked him to ring Daniel and tell him I was on my way. When I finally got home, I tied my bike to the railings in the front and leapt into the car to drive to the school. At the traffic lights, about half way there, there was a banging on my window and there was a tearful Michael who had walked home from school alone, as he thought I had abandoned him. He had seen me in the car but, sadly, I had not seen him and he had had to chase after the car for two streets with his enormous bag on his back. We drove to the school where Michael spotted Daniel who had just begun to trudge home. Daniel was more resigned than tearful, he has lower expectations for me, I suppose. He told me that he had forgotten his school lunch as well but had managed with donations from friends.
When we finally got home, herself was in bed sick and Michael reminded me that I had promised to take them to the Science Gallery again to check out the catastrophe room which had been fully booked when we visited the exhibition a couple of weeks ago. I got a quick bite of lunch and we were back in the car by 3.45. I tried a number of approaches to the Science Gallery but encountered grid locked traffic in all directions. It took us an hour to get there; it’s normally about 10 minutes. We parked some distance away but the walk made a pleasant change from sitting in traffic. The visit was great. The kind, lovely student guides played disaster card games with the boys; we got into the catastrophe room and Michael got to be president of the citizens’ assembly and had a veto on all the suggestions which he enjoyed very much. The scenario was that a tsunami might flood Cork in the next 500 years and to my chagrin he moved everyone out of Cork rather than build a defensive wall. My Dublin child. Daniel was very patient about Michael being president. It was clearly a role he might have liked himself but he refrained from undermining Michael and was actually quite supportive.
It was nearly 6.30 when we left. I got a call from herself asking when we might be home as she was entertaining saintly T, the childminder turned French conversation class, on her own and felt that in her ill state she needed a bit of support. I rang Mr. Waffle to say that there was no way we were going to make Michael’s hockey training at 6.45.
I got home and lit the fire and moved the language party out of the kitchen and in to sit by my lovely fire so I could start dinner. I had decided to have braised lentils which take forever but I was going to be home Friday afternoon so I would have time, I had thought. Sometimes I find that I can be curiously inflexible so even though it was 7.15 when I started dinner, I still made the lentils so we only sat down to eat at 8.30. As dinner was late, the boys were late to bed and a bit cranky and started rowing with each other upstairs which actually hardly ever happens. Parents were required to separate the tired combatants; all is quiet now but it is almost midnight.
If there were no weekends, I think I would die.
