Alone with The Great Plan

Dig's no help at all. He's gone back to work, looking at commas. We probably had the last decent conversation in 2000. I expect he'll announce in March he's off to Singapore or wherever to give a talk on commas. The children aren't much more help, demanding paint while I'm balancing a chest of drawers one one hand and a leg while I'm crawling half way up the staircase. Now I'm wondering why I'm embarking on this Great Plan. I might even back out now. But I've moved the chest of drawers, alone, which took all afternoon and a lot of grunting. Being unable to breathe thanks to the head cold is not helping either.

To their credit the kids sorted their soft toy box this morning. I told them freecycle is sometimes a special place for poor starving orphans who need cuddly toys. Unfortunately they put the most expensive into the freecycle box. Including Old Lady who has innards full of animals that cost thirty quid from storysack. They decided to keep Evil Ted who has no nose and a nasty glint in its eye. I had him in the freecycle bag three times last year and each time they rescued him. I think they've equipped him with radar. So I waited till they'd gone and dragged Old Lady out and put Evil Ted in.

This afternoon I got them busy sending letters to dragons or fairies or some such while I cleared their shelves with a rubbish bag. Last time Squirrel found me. 'Mummy's throwing away our art!' she cried. Cue screaming, weeping, and six little hands in my rubbish bag. Out of the rubbish bag came bits of inexplicable paper with scribble, knobs of clay that are supposed to be Celtic cauldrons, and twisted up pipe-cleaners with their wiggly eyes hanging off. And back onto the shelves went the art treasures.

So we reach the end of the day with bags of toys, including Evil Ted in a pillowcase, waiting for a freecycler who says her friend's house just burned down. A chest of drawers without one castor is propped up in a front room that's rapidly becoming a bedroom. Tomorrow out go old clothes, and it's the end for books about diggers having fun in puddles.

The end of the year reviews are starting to pour in through the letterbox about the profound impacts made upon our culture by Bono and Camilla Parker Bowles. I bet they couldn't single-handedly drag furniture upstairs with a cold, clear 12 shelves, pack 4 freecycle bags, cook lunch for Dig and triplets, and still be on hand to wipe Squirrel's bottom.