The view from here

The clock is ticking away my final hours before my sanity can rush back to work and unpack it's bags. Not a moment too soon I tell you, because after 6 weeks of He Who Must Be Obeyed managing to keep is big fat mouth shut, he finally came home and said it. Yep, he finally let the words trip effortlessly from his tongue, but oh so laden with meaning. "What the hell have you done all day*" Oh that went down well. So I explained how I felt about this rather insulting remark, receiving a similar retort, implying it was but a simple question.

Bollocks was it, what he should have done is walked into the kitchen, burst into tears, stamp his foot and wail beseechingly, "Where's my dinner?" Because in effect, that is what he meant. Well moron I do not cook for someone who belittles my cooking and since the kids were not around I had made Leyla and myself a comforting plate of tuna mash.

So having thrown all his toys out of his pram he made some cheese toasties and sulked in front of the tele for the rest of the night. Thankfully Mr Moron is stuck in a meeting all day.

I had in my fantasy world thought I might spend my last hours of freedom visiting Kettle Yard, but quite frankly the thought of yet another day following Leyla in and out of every public toilet in town and listening to her whining voice exclaiming how utterly bored she is, or how hungry she is, filled me with such dread that I have stayed at home.

Daisy came back from Reading dumped a large bag of washing at my feet and then went flush with another £30 of my hard won alimony to Bluewater. Kitty too came back home dumped two bags of washing at my feet then she too went clutching the other £30 plus £10 pocket money to Bromley. Their bedroom which I had tidied and cleaned looks like someone couldn't decide on what to wear and so tipped out their entire wardrobe. Oh actually that is exactly what has happened. Well if it does not resemble a photo-shoot by the time I get back from work tomorrow tears will be spilt, and I suspect they might be mine.

Currently Leyla has just locked me out whilst I was emptying the compost bin, it took a long and somewhat irritable 10 minutes for me to get her to open the door. Any tiny privileges amassed were promptly rescinded. THANK GOD she is back at school tomorrow, I used to cry when Kitty and Daisy went back, I used to howl all the way back to work.

Leyla and I have really reached the end of our goodwill and we will both be glad to see the back of each other. The au-pair arrives tomorrow as well, the bells are ringing out in celebration.

I have booked the cottage in Scotland and will post pictures once I have confirmation. For someone so not superstitious, I am curiously superstitious! plus I do not want someone gazumping me as I have set my heart on a cute shepherds cottage overlooking loch Awe.

I have read quite a lot over the holiday, nothing particularly challenging, some Kate Atkinson, and some Patrick Gale, who coincidentally lives and writes in Cornwall. I really enjoyed a couple of his books, very easy to read but quite perceptive too.

I also got out of the library two books by Kate Muir, Left bank and West Coast the latter being set it seems in or near the town where I have just booked a cottage. Although the books are peppered with grotesque caricatures, much of the observations are quite pertinent and very pithy.

* I had in fact had huge amounts of fun trying on all my new clothes and planning some outfits to wear for work without using any black.

I had also spent;

• 2 hours playing with Leyla
• Taken Leyla to the library
• Taken the dog for a walk
• Made lunch for Leyla and I
• Taken Leyla to the park and walked the dog again
• Spent an hour booking swimming lessons for guess who?