This afternoon, while we were trying to put the house in some semblance of order, La Serpiente and Destroyer went up the street to play with one of the neighbour’s daughters. After about two hours, when I’d watched some of the epically sweary The Gentlemen and we’d both relaxed on the sofa for a while, I went after the kids, with instructions to relieve our friends and take the girls to the park.
On the way over I had a brainwave: we had promised the girls a movie this weekend, so I’d just bring their friend down, sit all three of them in front of Cinderella and then our friends could go out and have a couple of hours of time to be adults together, and so we’d have returned the childminding favour in the same afternoon.
This worked pretty well; the new Cinderella is a bit like Heath Ledger’s A Knight’s Tale, with wilfully anachronistic musical choices, and lots of bright, fun costumes. We finished about eight, I read the girls fifteen minutes of The Golden Compass and then they went straight to sleep, exhausted by their day.
Then I had to go move more boxes from another friend’s basement. I found one box is just too big to allow the boot to close properly, but I was too tired to deal with putting the seats down, so I drove two blocks home with the car complaining constantly. The boot stayed shut, which was a victory. Or else, imagine my embarrassment if it had spilled cookware all over the street.
So the car is now empty of holiday stuff, we’ve tidied the house to the point where it feels we can live it it without going totally crazy, the kids are asleep and I’ve made big inroads to painting my (potential) team for the Chaos Cup. Onwards, to the next big adventure!