Dig's diary

Dig's been doing his 2007 diary. This is very irritating and I probably hate him for it. First stop Germany, then Uzbekistan, probably Argentina, a near-definite to Brazil, a pop over to Australia and a call-in to Malaysia. That's just for starters. No doubt he'll squeeze in a few European venues as well. Me, I'm off to the front room. Two years ago I hit the big time with a caravan in Norfolk. And last February we froze in a caravan in Sussex, thanks to Dig absconding to Thailand for a week.

I'm not happy about all this overseas travel while I suffer local swimming lessons, so this entry could include a small amount of bitter, deep-seated, vitriol.

I suppose I should put a word in his defence. 'I get tired of travelling' he says. There, that's five words.

He does get very stressed, this much is true. But sometimes it's his own doing: he routinely leaves twenty-five minutes in which to pack and get to the airport. No wonder his blood pressure goes off the scale.

And then, when all the stress and chaos and noise of his departure's died down, I'm here with the triplets, single-mothering. That's not fun. He was in the Lebanon when Shark got admitted to hospital. He heard about the bump being triplets when he was in the middle of Eastern Europe. And when the tiddlers were six months old he pushed off to Sri Lanka for two weeks and said it wasn't a holiday. I have my suspicions. Sometimes he comes back with strange items of clothing and photographs of ancient monuments.

Although the difference in our lives is sometimes of great irritation, I suppose I am glad that Dig's journeys are remarkably trouble-free. Probably because he does posh class and people are paid to be nice. In fact, apart from the routine last-minute 90mph drive to the local airport because he's got his dates and times mixed up, he's managed to stay out of trouble. Not including the petition in the Middle-east, that is. But he's never yet been imprisoned abroad, arrested at the airport or detained in the UK. I don't think Russia refusing him entry counts. We just had to come home again.

Now if he was stopped from getting on the airplane in the UK, I would glady drive and pick him up, so he could stay here, and do his fair share of triplet-minding. And I'm thinking. I wonder if I could slip something in his luggage?