Home alone, but not quite all alone – the limbo of life as a single gentleman
DRAT. Here I am miles from home and I know, I just know, I left the milk out on the breakfast table. By the time I roll up the avenue to Medders Manor this evening after a day’s work, it will surely have gone horribly sour. But it turns out there is no, absolutely no, need to worry. I sniff at the carton cautiously, just to be sure, and pour a dollop to check that it is lump free. The kitchen is as cold as the fridge and the milk proves to be as fresh as the day it left the cow, or at least as fresh as the day it left the supermarket. The temperature in the building has been hovering no more than a degree or two above freezing ever since Hermione’s departure.
The adored one jetted off a couple of days ago, pulling her Ryanair friendly suitcase. She brought the children with their Ryanair friendly rucksacks on their backs. All the baggage was light, comprising little more than a few pairs of shorts, a choice of tee-shirts and a light jumper each. They were bound for a week of sun and fun on some far away Spanish speaking isle while I was left back at base.
Her Majesty, the mother-in-law, is also included in the jaunt and she has been keeping me up to date on the vacation with a series of photos sent from her phone. The images are of palm trees and balmy seashores lapped by a sub-tropical ocean. I savour them as I sit alone on the giant lumpy sofa under a rug in the chilly vastness of the Manor’s sitting room.
I cannot bring myself to set a fire just for my benefit – call it laziness or call it concern for the ozone layer. Just as it is too much effort to cook potatoes for one person or open a bottle of wine for one person, so it seems a bother to assemble the Zips and the kindling.
My warm breath clouds in the cold air while I read a book and fondle the head of our dog as he snuggles up to his master. The Pooch is feeling the cold every bit as much as I am, palpably shivering beneath my touch. Nature in its perverse wisdom dictates that he is gently moulting, shedding hair at a time when he is clearly in need of extra insulation. I sympathise with his plight but refuse to contemplate buying one of those ridiculous tartan canine coats.
His pleading brown-eyed look, with ears wanly drooping, is very moving - but what can I possibly do to keep canine hypothermia at bay?
A stint of the single life for those used to sharing a household with three lively and demanding characters is a strange existence. With all family routine abandoned, the sensation is of leaving an accustomed time zone without settling in another, all grasp of normality distorted.
It seems that the bedroom curtains have not been pulled shut for days while those in the sitting room have never been opened. I may find myself doing the crossword at four in the morning, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, or putting out the bins at four in the afternoon, still in pyjamas.
The concept of eating regularly has been blown hopelessly off course, three square meals replaced by sporadic bowls of cornflakes and a gallop out to the Ming Garden for a ration of chow mein. A tide of discarded newspapers and takeaway packaging rises to cover all horizontal surfaces in the few rooms still inhabited. Late night radio provides some diversion, along with albums from that section of the music collection which pre-dates marriage. Playing The Stranglers or The Blades at full volume is not popular when everyone is in residence.
Such indulgences, along with watching a Champions League game uninterrupted from kick-off through to the last word of postmatch analysis, go some way to alleviating the tedium of this limbo in which I find myself. But now it dawns on me that this solitary existence is about to end as Hermione rings ahead to tell me that her plane is set to take off from Playa las Paella.
I spring into action, with plenty of time in hand to gather up all the chip packets, stuff all dirty clothing in the washing machine and give all the dirty cereal bowls a rinse. I even run a vacuum cleaner over the floor. Just one problem.
How the hell am I going to remove all the dog hairs from the sheets of the marital bed?