Home Front Alice Pitman

I am now officially an empty-nester.

Both children have left home. For the first time in twenty-three years, Mr Home Front and I find ourselves once more alone (though he reckons they’ll both be back before Christmas).

Fred is currently in the spare bedroom of foghorn-voiced Newsnight reporter John Sweeney’s house in London. Free board and lodging – on condition that he keeps his dog, Bertie, company while he is working.

As far as I can tell, Fred and Sweeney spend most of their spare time down the pub, devising schemes to get rich. Their latest plan is to write a musical on Scientology, which I think is a splendid idea. If The Book of Mormon, why not the antics of Ron L Hubbard’s lot? Though who will compose the tunes? I eagerly put myself forward via text, but tumbleweed blew back across the cyber ether.

‘How is Sweeney coping with all your mess?’ I recently asked.

‘Oh,’ said Fred ‘I try hard not to be untidy at his house.’ (Where is the fairness in that?)

I keep waiting for signs of disharmony between The Odd Couple but, so far, they seem to be getting on like a house on fire (‘That’s because they’re the same mental age,’ said Mr HF).

Last week, Fred texted, ‘He’s sleeping with me.’ My astonishment subsided when I saw the attached photo of Bertie the dog lying on Fred’s bed.

Meanwhile, daughter Betty has embarked on a course at Goldsmiths College, London. A last-minute place was offered after they read ten pages of her satire on life in a Surrey town, penned while she was meant to be studying for her GCSES. ‘It’s all very well, Betty writing a novel,’ her form teacher told me at the time, ‘But it won’t get her into university.’

Which now makes me think of Auntie Mimi’s legendary pronouncement to the young Lennon: ‘Playing the guitar is all

very well, John, but you’ll never make a living at it.’

Alas, at the time of writing, Betty appears not to be enjoying university life as much as Lennon initially enjoyed being a Beatle. When we dropped her off at the halls of residence in unlovely New Cross, you would think, by her gloomy demeanour, we were depositing her at Holloway Prison.

Her misery was compounded by an excitable group of freshers chanting, ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn, oh, Jeremy Corbyn’, outside the communal kitchen window on the first night. When Betty blurted, ‘Oh God!’, a flatmate stopped buttering toast and stared.

‘You mean you don’t like Jeremy Corbyn?’ said another. Give it a few more weeks, and students will be demanding a safe space from Betty.

On the second night, she had to eject a drunk lesbian from her room.

And on the third night, she sent us the following text: ‘If I promise to get a job, can I drop out?’

Meanwhile, Lupin the dog appears to have lost the will to live. I’m not telling Lady this, as it is all grist to her mill, but he keeps a daily ostentatious vigil in her bedroom and has even gone off his very expensive dog food. It is all, frankly, over-the-top and borderline insulting.

Before the children fled the nest, I had wondered how Mr Home Front and I would cope on our own. Would he spend even more time being grumpy and playing online chess? So far, we have been getting on quite well (unnerving). The other night, over a glass of wine, and feeling well disposed towards the world, I suggested we could even have a dinner party like other middle-aged couples do.

‘Perhaps we could have your boss and his wife over?’

‘Absolutely not!’ said Mr HF, choking on his ginger cordial. ‘Why?’ ‘Because my name is not Terry, and yours isn’t June.’

So we carry on watching television of an evening. Which is what I prefer doing. Our favourite is The Undateables. This week’s show featured a man from Kent with autism, who spoke in a hybrid American/english accent (‘I was raised by American computers,’ he explained). He wanted to find a woman who looked like Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft. ‘Good luck with that, mate,’ muttered Mr HF.

Unlike in the equally compelling series First Dates, they don’t tell you at the end if the couples ended up together. I think we have to wait for a special programme for that. Let’s hope she turns out to be his Lara Croft.