I say I know it all mounts up cost-wise, but these are essential experiences for a well-rounded education.
I suppose I should feel guilty. After all, times is hard. And he is working tirelessly in Hong Kong to earn a crust while I indulge my passions freely in geography, history, art, and running about the countryside bothering trees. Of course I try and make him feel better about it all. I claim it is not for me. It is for the children. I do everything only for them!
Well, husband, funding these ambitions just went up a notch. Shark found the gardening books.
While I was busy at the kitchen table with a calculator and a phone, trying to keep within the educational budget, Shark took a shovel to the earth and said with great enthusiasm, Look at my plan!
I say, I expect daddy will be pleased you are showing an interest in garden design. It can be a very expensive hobby if you have resolved yourself upon waterlilies, fish, fountains, an orchard of fruit trees, a Gothic arch, and 23 acres of a country estate.
Nevertheless, I used to love gardening myself, so I want to encourage her. I offer to take her to the garden centre and see how far she can get with a modest budget and a small Victorian garden. I shall call that an education as well, and shave off an outing elsewhere.
I suppose, at this point, it is a duty upon me to feel generally bad; no doubt someone would like me to feel so. Being a dependent woman and all, not earning her own income, squittering the husband's hard earnings on transitory aspirations. Everyone knows that I tell him it's the kids, when really I am just encouraging them in all the areas where I'd like free reign to spend his money.
Okay then, I'll feel bad about my cake mixing bowl. It seems to have upended itself in Shark's mud pile. Yes, I'll feel bad about that, because now having seen it make a mould for a pond, I shall be cautious when making my own cakes to feed the masses.
Maybe it would be better to buy those French Fancies from Waitrose instead.
