A Mass of Odds and Ends

I’m not there - I’m in England this week, leaving an entirely masculine household, Aldo, the boys, and my brother. I’m not sure what they’re all up to, (this is a nostalgic photograph of Christmas) but I gather that it includes a lot of eating, drinking, and mad journeys on icy roads. I call in occasionally asking teenagers to be sensible (”you’ve said sensible at least five times now”, one of them told me) and wondering if the adults could try as well…

It is so hard not to become a mother bore. One of the greatest joys when Sam started nursery school (apart from the fact that my tiny world opened a fraction and I thought Goodness, I could compose a symphony, write a novel, take over a small country - with THREE FREE HOURS a day!) was the much awaited Parent-Teacher evening. At last, I thought, I can talk about my FAVOURITE subject - at length. And no doubt I did (the years between have mercifully obscured the memory) until the penny dropped - that there were another twenty four other children in the class, and the teacher was possibly less than fascinated by my recounting his extraordinary insights into life, his precocious skills, his every tiny habit and way. And now he’s eighteen, and the desire to go on for hours and hours is still there, but luckily for everyone around me I’ve learnt to do it quietly, in my head.