Back home

No-one missed me. Thanks to the envelopes the girls all agreed it was a jolly good thing I'd gone for the night and they all suggested I should go more often.

Dig put in a lot of effort. Shark was delighted to announce that daddy did the washing up at 8.30am. This was quite an achievement. My guess is that he was terrified I might have had such a fabulous child-free time I'd come back and see all the plates piled up under the kitchen table and I'd go bonkers, smash the lot up and leave. He used to put all the dirty plates, pans and cups into a washing up bowl and then stash the washing up bowl under the kitchen table, where I'd put my feet in it when I sat down. I took that washing up bowl into the yard, turned it upside down and jumped on it. That stopped him.

He did cooking too while I was gone. His two recipes are pasta, and baked potatoes, if he remembers to put the oven on. Both come with the same tomato sauce. He used to be able to cook. Strange, that. When we were courting, probably back in the 14th century, I would love to come round and be fed exotic foods from the The Vegan Cookbook. He had quite a repertoire, from spicy bulgar wheat and red pepper sauce to cashew nuts and saffron. Now it's all 'Do you want tomato sauce with that pasta?' and that's it.

There's obviously something gone on while I've been away. The kitchen table seems to have a large charcoal patch on it, like there might have been a small domestic fire. No-one says anything, so I don't either. I just scrub the table a lot and make gentle, non-threatening enquiries. The children say they've been doing science experiments and daddy had to use a lot of tealights to get the water to boil. It seems to have gone well for them. They all rattle off that water boils at 100 degrees celcius. They add that pasta didn't cook in the frozen water, and I just say, OK, because I've had a lovely time, and I don't want to spoil it by knowing too much.

I did have a lovely time. I'm sure I didn't miss them at all. I must have bored Zia and Luna to bits talking about Shark and Squirrel and Tiger. But they were gracious enough not to be tell me to shut up, or that they'd heard that story before, or wasn't it time for bed now, when it was only half past eight.

Thank you Zia and Luna. It was a lovely time. And no one missed me much at all.