Dig comes home to leave again

Dig is popping in today, en route from Hong Kong to India. How global is that? This is the sort of life I only dream about. Anyway he says he needs to pick up the other passport and will you wash these socks?

Now he'll disappear to sleep and, because it's not worth coming out the time zone, he'll get up at 3am to stride about the office in his underwear, shouting at Calcutta because they expect him to transfer between hotels on a bus. In 48 hours he catches the next flight out to Delhi leaving us all to wonder who swept through the house crashing into the tea table, saying it's bedtime so be quiet.

Grit has a similar exotic travelling life, filled with glamour, as you can imagine. Me and Kate Moss, our lives are indistinguishable. I may even be mistaken for her, except I actually do the sordid bits of motherhood thing. Down the local field usually, with gritlets hanging off my body parts. Incidentally, I have begun to wonder if my limbs are detachable because Tiger has taken recently to hanging on my left arm like she knows it comes off, if she pulls hard enough. That would be great, having the gritlets run about the field with a leg or an arm apiece to wave about as weaponry. My torso could have a lie down and get some peace and quiet.

Well now I am thinking about the glamorous life that Grit leads, especially when Dig is in Hong Kong, or Korea, or Delhi, or anywhere, except at home. You might see the resemblance between me and Kate.

Eating. Probably a bit more than Kate. This is actually becoming a bit of a problem because my once super slim Kate lookalike rear is now resembling a bag of boulders escaped from the Peak district. I blame Dig about this, definitely, because this is obviously comfort eating. I am eating because I am comfortable. With no-one else there I can do what I like, including eat Hobnobs in bed at 2am if I want.

Drinking. I'm sure Kate likes to get smashed on Bolly. I'm afraid I am developing a rather more serious habit. Olive oil. This all started because last Wednesday I felt the need to be a member of the upper classes and put out a bowl of superior olive oil tickled with a twist of fresh pepper and sprinkled with a dash of rock salt. One dips one's fresh, warm, crusted bread into this, obviously. Except that after a couple of days I ditched the bread and started scooping up the olive oil with the spoon that Shark says resembles a shovel. After a couple more days I'm slapping that bowl straight at my face, draining it dry and licking it clean. Give it a day longer and I shall dispense with the bowl altogether and go straight for the bottle.

Sleeping. This is disgusting and I don't think I should admit in a public forum that I actually sleep in old clothes, and deliberately at that, so that there is no night and no day there is only time. As you might imagine, Grit conjures up a lovely Kate lookalike image at 3am, dribbling, burping and farting thanks to the Hobnobs and olive oil, while dressed in her Waynetta slob track suit bottoms with an elasticated waist, topped with an old tee-shirt that she has worn continuously for nigh on six days.

Manicuring. Or failing to do that quite as correctly as Kate does. Or actually failing to do anything at all. Virtually all personal care ceases when Dig is not around. You know, ladies, those stray hairs that appear on the upper lip when we are not looking? And which Kate obviously carefully removes? Forget it. I now look like this.


If it could get any worse in the personal care and maintenance department, it does. It is as much as I can do to stay my hand reaching for the Tenna ladies in Tesco. If I slap one of these lovelies round my boulder-like arse I might avoid using the toilet altogether and on some days that would probably be the total expression of personal care that I might aspire to.

But do not think, dear reader, that this sinking down into a ditch is all caused simply because the husband Dig is not around, and that without his manly presence, his strong and guiding hand, I drift all forlorn and lost at sea. It is not. It is because in Dig's absence I can do what the hell I like.