Hestia and....Tartarus (again)

Evidence of Hestia's last minute tidy up 

As far as I can remember, Tartarus has come home on a Friday from Mexico.  Sometimes, depending on whatever weather or security problems have arisen en route, it is Saturday morning before we see him.

I had decided to prepared for his arrival by looking a bit more organised.  So, I secured myself a wash, blow-dry and straightening session with Angela so that I looked fairly presentable for his arrival.  I organised it for Friday.

Trouble was, he came home on Thursday.

Ah well, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that....

Part of my preferred displacement activities (ie stuff that I wasted time on instead of cleaning the house for his imminent arrival) is shopping on ebay.  I bought Sonshine a ridiculously expensive Bakugan thing which arrived the other day - six little plastic balls that fit together to make a plastic dragon - for £45.  I was appalled at it's expensive cheapness. Still, it was his own money (Christmas cash) and he was delighted with it. So fair enough.

I also bought myself a blue and white striped jersey with some red detail because it's Spring 2011, people, and I have NOTHING with a nautical edge.  The bidding started at £3 which was fine, but I got itchy fingers and ended up bidding about £11 for it, which, added to the postage, meant that I could probably have bought the damned thing new for the same price.

Anyway, it arrived.  I put it on.  Horizontal stripes may be in, but I look like a deck chair with tits.

The doorbell rang.  It was a courier.  Delivering something.  I signed for it.  But I had not ordered anything.  A quick glance at the side told me that it was from Laithwaites, the wine people.

I went on line and checked our account (more displacement activity) and confirmed that we hadn't ordered anything since early December.  I decided to phone and a very helpful girl explained that when we bought a case in December, we automatically set up a standing order for a repeat box every 3 months.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled an instruction from Tartarus about cancelling something. I  hadn't been able to remember what it was and so had done nothing.

This was obviously it.

We now had 18 bottles of the same kind of wine.  Would I manage to get away with it? I wondered to my self as I dragged the box through to the back room.  I slotted the wine bottles into the rack and hoped that he would not notice the veritable wine cellar accruing next to the downstairs lavvy.

Ah well, what else could possibly go wrong?

The day flew past in a haze of furniture polish and a small boy chattering rubbish ('Mummy, imagine if I was a dinosaur - would that be scary? No?  What if I was a dinosaur with a hand grenade? Mummy.  Mummy are you listening?  What if I was a dinosaur in a SPITFIRE?')

The phone rang at ten minutes to seven in the evening.  It was dad.  It was time to go!

We hopped into the car, swishing the windscreen wipers to clear the screen of hailstones and got the heater on full bung.  Two minutes later we were at the ferry port and watching for Tartarus and his little trundle case.

Sonshine could stand it no longer and got out into the howling gale and hopped about whilst looking hopefully into the deep shadows and bright pools of light for the familiar outline of his dad.

And then he was there.  They hugged and kissed and all was well.

I got out of the car to get my hug and kiss only to find Tartarus had already climbed into the front seat and was already telling his son that yes, he would be quite terrified if Sonshine was a dinosaur in a spitfire.

'How was your journey down from the airport?'

'Two arseholes were fighting on the ferry.'

'I heard that,' piped up the voice of Moral Rectitude in the back seat.

Soon we were all back in the house and I got my hug (woopee).

I was quietly quite pleased with the nick of the house.  I've actually been trying to be tidy in his absence. Sure, the compost bin for the kitchen scraps was starting to get a bit whiffy again, but I had gotten kind of used to its cabbagey scent.

He lifted the bin bag out of the bin and tied a knot in it.

'When was the last time that you cleaned out the liquid at the bottom of the bin?' he asked, peering into the darkness of the blue bin.

'Eh, never.  Wasn't aware that there WAS stuff that needed cleaning.'  I looked anxiously over his shoulder into the bin please don't let there be anything stuck to the bottom, pleeeeease.......  Of course there was. Some unspecified stickiness of ancient lineage.  Possibly related to Kevin in the bread bin (yes, he's still there).


Tartarus cleaned out the bin silently.


And I marvelled, for the millionth time, how his long-awaited homecoming left me feeling like a deflated party balloon.


Still, things will pick up in a couple of days - it always does.