New Maths

In the last few days I had a birthday but incredibly enough I managed not to get any older.

How does she do that, you ask?? Amazing!!

It’s quite easy, my friends. Almost nothing to it. The simple equation:

Denial + Lying = Confusion + Uncertainty

means that if you practice this for long enough, not only does nobody else know (or care) your true age, you can’t remember either.  Astonishingly enough this seems to apply to one’s mother, too, possibly due to her own advancing age which curiously enough does not halt when one’s own does. I have not managed to solve this particular mathematical conundrum despite my obvious skills with advanced calculus.

We did have a lovely time including a brunch at a fancy hotel, the highlight of which was a chocolate fountain into which you could immerse various delicious things on wooden skewers. Five proved very adept and covered several strawberries, some dried apricots and a marshmallow. Two felt that this was an unmanly approach to dessert and thus stuck both hands directly into the molten stream before we could stop him. To his surprise the chocolate was rather warmer than he had anticipated so he shouted “Hot! Hot!” and immediately wiped his hands off on the closest pair of trousers who happened to belong to a fellow diner hitherto unknown to us.  Fortunately the gentleman took it in good part.
I think the free flowing champagne helped.

Later we had a tea party attended by the cream of society (me, family, friends, the cat) and ate more sugar, fat, flour and chocolate and by the evening I was fairly glazed over from carbohydrates and overexcitement. Husband suggested I get an early night with the children which I obediently did, tucking into my bed with a book and the cat not long after nine o’clock and I passed out soon after.

I woke up the next day with a hideous hacking cough which was impervious to syrups, sweeties, hot lemon and honey or any other remedy I threw at it. I sniffled miserably around the house trying to write a bit, coughed my way through Five’s parent-teacher conference and sat listlessly on the sofa while the children created mayhem with a selection of vintage playmobile toys their father had given them. I was determined to conserve my energy, such as it was, for the evening when Husband and I had an actual date night planned – dinner out and a movie, the babysitter booked.
At the appointed hour our sitter turned up and I dragged my hacking self out the door with Husband and we went to a restaurant where I managed to eat half of my dinner and four glasses of ice water to keep the cough under control. After that it seemed to be abating somewhat so we went off to the cinema to watch A Single Man – I’ve been wanting to see this for some time but somehow never quite got around to it, you know how it is when you have little children, you never get to the movies unless it’s a kiddie flick. Husband spotted one of his colleagues, a senior professor sitting in the sparse audience and went to say hello.
The film started, and almost concurrently my cough came back.

And it wouldn’t stop.

Husband asked if I wanted to leave. I didn’t, I hoped it would calm down – I really wanted to see the film.
Yet I coughed and spluttered, spluttered and coughed. I hid my head in my coat to try to muffle it. I drank water, I sucked on a sweet but still it wouldn’t stop.
Husband gave me a fierce look which cowed me, but unfortunately not my cough.  And just as I was thinking I had better get up and go, the manager of the cinema came and threw me out.

It was very embarrassing.

She was actually quite nice about it and gave us free tickets to come back another day but I felt really awful, not to mention by now quite ill, and when I pitifully whimpered to Husband that it was horrible being chucked out he said

“I felt really sorry for all the other people”

Husband: Nil points.

However, I feel it only fair to point out that he redeemed himself thoroughly the following day when I took a turn for the worse by taking over all of the childcare while I slept for 24 hours, waking only to get antibiotics from the doctor. He even brought me tea in bed and didn’t complain about the massive pressure he is under at work. This was much appreciated.

So now I am back on my feet, in a light-headed, slow-blinking sort of way,  and trying to remember what it was I am supposed to be doing this week, now that it is nearly over. I think I may have to wait a few days until I can actually get stuck into the full throttle of life again -Monday is always a good day to do that, I feel.

And according to my clever equation, no time has been lost – in fact I could even have gained some.