The House Husband

There is an unwritten law in our house. Sunday nights are free from work. At the end of our weekend, the last thing we want is an invasion of work related stress. The peace and serenity achieved by two days at home can be completely dashed by one simple yet not entirely thought out intrusion.

And this had been such a good weekend. Mirinda entertained herself in the garden for a few hours which is always restful. We watched a good movie on Saturday night (One Day – highly recommended) and had a few episodes of Trial & Retribution for lunch and dinner.

We’ve been catching up with Trial & Retribution over the last few months and are becoming increasingly irritated with the main character. Mike is ghastly. He is gradually approaching the ‘no redeeming features’ realm of TV drama. It’s weird that a thoroughly unlikeable character can be successful as a police inspector. Still, it’s entertaining which is what you want over your ham roll and soup.

And we were happily watching part 2 of series 7 when Mirinda’s little friend announced the arrival of a text. She’d changed the notification sound so, at first, we didn’t know what it was. It’s a bit of an improvement over the old one which reminded me of the intro to a scary moment in a horror film.

It was from Ben. His text suddenly caused Mirinda to go stiff and quiet. It wasn’t good. We tried to concentrate on the TV but the text was obviously preying on her mind. I paused the TV and we discussed the text.

There is one name that will cause this sort of reaction in my wife and he’d mentioned it in the text. The text was teaser, asking if she knew who’d headhunted this person, the fear being it was her company. As it turned out, it was another company over which they all have an interest, but it had the power to ruin an otherwise perfect weekend.

Mirinda eventually rang him and told him off, explaining the Sunday Night Rule in no uncertain terms. He was sufficiently chastised although he did think it funny. He has a very loud voice on the phone and I could hear his nervous laughter. According to Mirinda he seemed more concerned that he’d upset me!

Anyway, it all turned out all right and he now knows the Sunday Night Rule. Day-z, being a little behind things as usual, then jumped off me and stood on the lounge room floor. Then, like a scene from The Exorcist, she was suddenly overtaken with a fit of projectile vomiting. Mirinda’s first comment was how handy it was we have wooden floors.

Poor Day-z. Her gentle sensibilities had been shattered by the text; her disdain evident in a large pool on the floor. It was so bad, she then sat outside on the path, taking the fresh air in order to settle her tummy.

Both the poodles have a bad habit of drinking the water in the bird bath and Mirinda thinks it was this that turned her tummy (it was all clear liquid, after all) but I’m convinced it was Ben and his text.

Mirinda has been at a conference the last two days. One of those ‘ra-ra, ain’t we the best’ type affairs which she loves so much. Needless to say, last I spoke to her, she was quite keen on coming home tonight. (Actually, the last I spoke to her she was barely awake, given it was at 7 this morning but the time before that, to be completely accurate.)

The saving grace of the conference was how well BH did in his go kart. He surprised me as I was expecting great things from him.

Last night they had a black tie dinner and, according to Mirinda, the meaning of black tie was stretched somewhat. In case anyone really needs to know what black tie actually requires, I suggest they look here.

Other than speaking to mum and dad this morning, it’s basically been a rather normal, run of the mill, nothing ever happens around here, day. Of course, there was the usual garden action to monitor. I quite liked this robin but wish he’d moved a little to the right before starting to take off.

Eat and run

I was waiting for a bird food delivery today and stocks of the feeders were dwindling. This meant there was a bit of a rush on the fatball holder. At one point there were blue tits, great tits and starlings all pecking and trying for a bit of lard at once. This little fellow was flapping around, trying to stay on as a starling tried to dislodge him.

The wings can be a fabulous asset

I’m including this last photo because it looks like the blue tit is saying grace before diving onto the floating table.

For what I'm about to receive...

I am a bit concerned with the sudden proliferation of collared doves in the garden. Today I counted a dozen in the tree, all sitting as far from each other as possible, and one on the floating table. Any time one of the tree doves tried to land to eat, the table dove had a right go at it. It was very nasty!

All this is just nature however, I have just read on a bird watching forum that collared doves are, in fact, quite aggressive and will eventually scare off all other birds from your garden. I’m hoping that doesn’t happen but I now feel it my duty to keep an eye on what’s going on.

I should explain something. A ‘rescue’ dog, as I referred to the other day, is a dog that has come from a dog’s home after suffering some sort of abuse or neglect. Our neighbours, and indeed quite a few people in Farnham, taken them on to help them re-adjust to a world that doesn’t involve some sort of physical and/or mental pain.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with this entry. Today we went to Ben & Monali’s for lunch. I haven’t seen them for ages. Given that Imogen has grown a year we figured it’s been a year. I have seen Ben once in there, when we went out to dinner with Mirinda’s work chums, but Monali and Imogen were not there. According to Imogen, she’s “not a baby, I’m 2!“. She’s also quite pleased with her potty skills.

So, I was looking forward to one of Monali’s wonderful Indian feasts. But here’s the thing. Ben didn’t give her much warning that he’d invited us for lunch so she had to throw something together.

Now I have always said that Monali is one of my favourite chefs in the entire universe but that opinion has always been based on her Indian food. Well, her British/European food is bloody brilliant as well.

Slow roasted lamb that melted off the bone, mashed carrots, a sauté of vegetables, mint sauce…fantastic. Super delicious. Loved it. Mustn’t forget the dessert. A chocolate pudding with pears. Sounds rich and it was. With just a daub of ice cream. Perfect.

We had a lovely afternoon. Imogen has become very entertaining in the last year. She’s very articulate and very cheeky with it. I didn’t have to sit through any DVDs but did spend quite a bit of time watching her ride her scooter round and round what Ben laughingly calls their back yard.

When we arrived home, afterwards, we played lots of music, very loudly and sang a lot. Hopefully that annoyed the neighbours.

Mirinda and Imogen