Goodbye Sunday
It's funny really – you look forward to the weekend throughout the week, and then when it gets here you don't really get a chance to enjoy it because you're swamped with expectations, obligations, and a list of chores a mile long.
In the middle of the mayhem we managed to escape to a restaurant with friends last night for a couple of hours – our first night out in months – and it had to be planned months in advance. As we all wrapped coats and scarves around ourselves before heading out into the night to walk home, the usual conversation took place – “we should do this more often”. I think I've heard those words at the end of every night out I've ever been on – maybe they are a constant of the universe.
Today was a return to the grind. Two loads of washing through the machine before we left the house to stand alongside a rugby pitch for three hours watching our middle-girl's side get well and truly walloped, before heading back to make dinner, wash up, and then shout at the kids for suddenly remembering that they might have actually had some homework after all.
I suppose standing at the side of the rugby pitch wasn't all bad – I crossed paths with two of the most entertaining people I have seen in quite some time.
The first was a fellow parent – a small, stocky man in his mid 50s, with quite the most preposterous moustache I have ever seen. He could have starred alongside Terry Thomas in an ealing comedy. It didn't help that while he tried to have a conversation with you, he continually licked his fingers and curled the ends of his moustache. In the end I couldn't look him in the face because I feared I might laugh out loud.
The second was another parent that my other half had fore-warned me about. While the coaches of the team tried to give instruction from one side of the pitch, this parent – resplendant in a purple hoodie – shouted a continual, loud, confusing, and mainly nonsensical list of instructions to his daughter. She spent most of the game looking at him as he shouted his unique form of “advice”. I began to wonder if she had any mind of her own at all until she shouted “shut up Dad” at him, in front of all the other parents – who all laughed out loud. He then shouted back “sorry”, resulting in more laughter. It didn't stop him though. I wondered if he was one of the parents you hear about that live vicariously through their children – I've seen one or two at rugby matches in the past – they typically take the form of angry little men though, that bully their own children.
So. It's 8pm on Sunday night, and I have a couple of hours of the weekend to myself. I can hear a shouting match going on upstairs because my other half has just discovered that the children lied about tidying their rooms up too – a cache of dirty clothes has just been discovered. Fun times.