The greatest gift is our own eyes, sense of smell, and abilities to deduce - Patricia Cornwell

I was dreading going home after our holiday, because I knew the house would be a mess, it was, but it was not as bad as it was last year. We had a nice surprise because my daughter had painted the bathroom and it looks very nice. When we opened the front door we were met by a very unpleasant smell and my first hour or so at home was taken up with trying to track it down. It wasn't animal related and it wasn't the bin, amazingly the bin bag in the kitchen was almost empty. I tracked the pong to the kitchen but I couldn't identify it, I checked for rotting vegetables, but there were none, I had a good sniff inside the fridge but the smell wasn't coming from there. 

In the end I had to leave it and get on with tidying the kitchen and doing the laundry. Then Robbie made me a cup of tea and I sat down in the lounge to drink it. I could smell an over-ripe banana in the fruit bowl and I took it out to the food recycling caddy and as I lifted the lid, the pong was revealed in all it's glory. The contents of the caddy which had morphed into a green hairy mass, had been there since before our holiday! When I had escorted the stinking mass to the outside food bin and disinfected the food caddy, the inquest began. My son was adamant that it was not on his list - a typically aspie response! My older daughter who has a poor sense of smell claimed not to have noticed it and her sister announced that she doesn't have anything to do with food recycling because it is gross. So, the combined intellect of two university graduates and an A Level student was not sufficient to cope with the 'complexities' of  emptying the food caddy. Next year I will leave the cat in charge!

It's a little bit funny this feeling inside .......... - Elton John

Robbie didn't have the best start this morning, he arrived at the station and realised that he had left both his blackberries on the dining table, so I had to make a mercy dash to reunite him with his phones. I wasn't best pleased but when I saw his guilty grin I couldn't be cross with him. When he leaned into the car to give me a kiss and to say thank you, he mentioned that he had a strange pins and needles type pain at the top of his leg, just below his buttock. He said it felt a bit like when the injection is wearing off after dental treatment. I was worried because it did not sound like his usual sort of pain.


When I checked on him a bit later on he mentioned that the discomfort seemed to be moving down his leg and it was very itchy. I didn't hear from him again until later that morning when the cause of his problem had been discovered. He was out until late last night and when he came home he decided that he had wash his 'smalls' because he wanted to wear his favourite pair the next day. I was tired and left him to it. Apparently he didn't check the dryer before he put his items in to dry. I had washed all my kitchen cloths earlier in the day and somehow a small flat scourer found its way unnoticed into Robbie's pants! By the time he had got to work it had worked its way down his leg and as he made himself a cup of coffer it fell out from his trouser leg!

Robbie On A Bad Day

Where do I start? Maybe I should just say that Robbie's mood yesterday evening was a little fragile, it was clear that he was tired - the sound of snoring was a bit of a hint! I went to bed at around 11pm and I thought he would follow shortly after - he didn't! I made sure that all my alarm clocks were set correctly because it always takes my body clock a few days to adjust to losing an hour. Then I settled down to sleep. The next thing I remember is being woken by someone treading on my ankle - Robbie had finally decided to come to bed. I probably told him to go away as I drifted back to sleep, but I was woken again shortly after by a loud bleep, then another, then a whole series of bleeps and a flashing blue light. In my confused and sleepy state I couldn't work out what was going on, was it morse code or some sort of secret message? I forced my eyes open to see Robbie kneeling naked on the bed attempting to change the time setting on his new Lego alarm clock. There was a brief but brutal exchange of insults and I advised Robbie to take clock to the bathroom to set it with the light on! It was just after 2am and I was determined to get some sleep so I turned my back on him and pulled the duvet over my head.


His Lego alarm clock announced  that it was 5am and time to get up - he slept on. After several further episodes of blue lights and bleeping and considerable input from me, Robbie plodded off to the bathroom. That dratted alarm clock continued to serenade me every 5 minutes until Robbie returned, I wanted to implant it in his head but I restrained myself and told him to take it away and drown it! His interest was then taken up with pants! Allegedly I had deliberately deprived him of his favourite underwear by failing to do a dark wash yesterday. I did a dark wash on Sunday evening, how many pairs of pants could he possibly have got through since then! I provided him with clean pants and socks but he wasn't keen to let go of the issue and he continued muttering about the underwear conspiracy until he found something else to moan about. Apparently I have deliberately failed to oil the hinges on our bedroom door just to annoy him! That man makes my hands itch sometimes!!


The thing is that none of those things were the real problem. The truth is that he is in so much pain from his back and his legs that he doesn't know how to put one foot in front of the other. He will not go to the doctor because he knows there is nothing they can do except give stronger pain killers. I feel so useless, I wish I could make the pain go away, I wish I could do something, anything to make it easier for him. There has to be some way to ease the pain and I am not going to give up until I find it!


Photo by Clix

Tired

As you can see this was written yesterday, but the internet connection is so slow here that I have only just managed to upload it.

I can't believe it is Thursday already and I can't believe how tired we both feel, It must be the sea air or something. Neither of us were up very early this morning, but we were not in a hurry to go anywhere so it didn't matter.

I washed a few bits and bobs before we went out. When we are at home laundry is just a chore, but here washing (by hand) is a pleasure because it is so easy to get things dry. There is just a footpath between the back garden and the beach so there is always enough breeze to dry the washing.

We enjoyed an afternoon in North Walsham, it is not far from Walcott and we know it well, but we still enjoy having a look around whenever we are in Norfolk. It is just nice to relax and be able to spend unhurried time together. Later while we were pottering around Robbie came up with his quote of the week. He was choosing a bottle of salad cream, an I was marveling at how difficult he made it. First there was the debate abot glass bottle or plastic bottle, then it was a matter of the shape of the bottle, then he prefers the design of the lable of one brand over another. As far as I could see there was no consideration about price or taste, so I just picked up the light version of the brand he had chosen and headed off with the trolley. I didn't get far, he had a fit because the lable was the wrong colour and I had to swap it to the colour he was comfortable with. He said "the trouble is you don't understand me" but I think from his point of view the trouble is that I understand him far to well at times - it doesn't always make life comfortable for him! He may be hard work at times but he is worth the effort - usually!

Laura and her friend came this afternoon, they are only staying until tomorrow, but it is lovely to see them. They went into Cromer this evening.

How Did He Do That?

Why do the men in my family have so much problem with their clothes and why does it always have to involve me. On Friday morning Robbie was not wearing his suit (because it was dress down Friday), so when I spotted his suit trousers on the bedroom floor, I escorted them to the laundry basket. A little later I was downstairs wondering why Robbie hadn't left yet when I heard what sounded like an entire army galloping around upstairs, after a series of loud manoeuvres a read faced and breathless Robbie thundered down the stairs clutching a Roy Cropper style shopping bag containing his suit. Apparently I had made him late by hiding his trousers and made him miss his bus so I had to give him a lift to the station. He had a meeting during the day so he needed his suit for the meeting and I had creased his trousers. According to him he had not hung them on the floor, he had draped them near the television in full view so that he didn't forget them!

I may have inadvertently hidden his trousers, but I am fairly useful when it comes to sewing buttons on and general mending, both Robbie and Sam get themselves into some very odd scrapes with their clothes. When we were on holiday Robbie managed to catch his stomach on a door handle and tear his new shirt, it took ages to mend it. How on earth does anyone catch their stomach on the door handle, I can understand how you could scrape your arm or perhaps even rip your pocket, but he must have been walking sideways to catch his stomach on the door handle!

A Bit Too Random

It has been nice but rather exhausting to have Robbie at home over Christmas, but over the last couple of days we have been able to take life a little more leisurely. It is wonderful not to have to get up at the crack of dawn it is a real luxury. The other day we were still in bed enjoying being close when Robbie suddenly sat up and said "sock bag". I thought I had misheard, but he went on to enquire exactly how to wash socks using a laundry bag. I explained, but I was rather sad that relaxing in bed with his wife only made him think of socks! It is a good thing that I am used to his random comments.

An Extra Leg?

I found out why Robbie has been so impossible recently, he is worried. He is having numbness and pain in part of his hand, until now the numbness has only been in his feet and legs. When he told me I thought it may be something like carpel tunnel syndrome, but the symptoms don't match that. He will not go to the doctors to find out what is causing it, so his imagination is on overtime. Why do men make everything so complicated?

I explained to Robbie that I was very tired and that when he wakes me up at night I can't get back to sleep. I even warned him that if he woke me up again he would need to run very far and very fast! By the time he came to bed at about 1am I was asleep, but he was talking loudly as he walked into the bedroom. This time he was accusing me of stealing his socks! At the weekend when I was sorting and folding the clean washing I paired up and delivered at least eight pairs of socks; so unless he has recently grown an extra leg he should have enough socks to last a week! I didn't argue with him, I was too tired. Thankfully I was so tired that I went back to sleep fairly quickly.

Giong Comando - A Scary Thought!

On Sunday night I went to bed at at about 12.20am and Robbie assured me that he wouldn't be far behind. It was the usual story, I stayed awake, he didn't come to bed and I fell asleep. Suddenly I was aware of him shouting, he was really angry and moaning that he had no clean pants for the morning. I told him that they were in the pile of folded laundry that I gave him earlier, and there was at least enough pairs of pants for a week. He argued and insisted that there were no pants and he would have to go without. I was equally sure that the pants were exactly where I said they were. It was well past 2pm and I begged Robbie to shut up, but he was warming to his theme and he intended to list the many ways that I was neglecting him. Nothing I could say or do would make him shut up, and I was so annoyed about being woken up that I was ready to harm him. There was no alternative, I got up and went to sit in the bathroom to listen to the radio for a bit. When I got back he was still awake and I made it clear that if he spoke to me again I would go and sleep downstairs. He didn't speak, but he 'breathed aggressively' until he fell asleep and started snoring. I was awake for ages, then when I had got to sleep again it was time to get up! All that fuss about missing knickers! In the morning I made him look again at the pile of clean folded laundry and there were the pants, exactly where I said they were. That man is impossible sometimes!

The Wrong Kind of Balls.

For a man who spends his working life dealing with timetables, Robbie's record of keeping to any kind of timetable in his private life is dismal. Yesterday he rang me at work to announce that he was still at work and wouldn't be back until 9.30pm, and he needed a lift. I couldn't express my annoyance adequately because I was at work, but he got the general impression.

When he finally got home, I expected him to be tired and just a little bit sorry for messing up our evening routine. Instead he appeared in the doorway of the lounge, hands on hips complaining that I had not discussed an important purchase with him. He complained that I had bought the wrong kind of tumble dryer balls, because the last ones eventually cracked. I told him that the previous ones had lasted for almost 3 years, not bad for 99p! He was not convinced and he said that he wants nothing to do with the new balls because they are the wrong brand. Oh well, he has two choices, he can either put up with it or manage without any balls!

Shirt Wars

How can the laundry cause such disruption in the household. Yesterday I spotted that Sam and Robbie would both need a clean shirt for the morning, Robbie has loads of clean shirts, but being a creature of habit he finds every excuse under the sun to restrict himself to about four shirts. Sam has plenty of shirts too, but several have been ruined by paint, ink and other assorted nasties that were beyond the help of a stain remover. One recent red stain leaves him looking as if he has a gun shot wound to the chest, so we are down to about 5 presentable shirts. I asked Sam to bring his washing down on Thursday morning, he didn't do it so I decided to wait and make him bring it down when he got back from school. The whites load was ready to go on, Sam just needed to put his shirts in and press a button, but being a typical male he 'forgot' to do it. When I got back from work I was really cross that it hadn't been done and after assorted threats I finally got him to bring his laundry down and I put the whites on.

I was so tired that I was struggling to stay awake. I am always tired, it isn't easy coping with a 'toy boy' especially one like Robbie! Anyway Robbie was messing about with his iTunes account again, so he agreed to see to the shirts when they were ready and I went off to bed. It shouldn't have taken too long, but the next I knew Robbie woke me in the middle of the night to moan that I had washed to many shirts! As far as I am concerned a white load is exactly that - a load, but Robbie insisted that I should just have washed one shirt for him and one for Sam. I tried to go to sleep and ignore him, but he went on and on until it ended in a row. The stupid thing is that this morning he went to work in 'Friday clothes' he didn't wear a shirt so all that fuss was pointless!!!

You Know You Have Lost The Plot When .........

Robbie went off on another rail tour at the weekend while I stayed at home and rushed around like a headless chicken. My step father is still in hospital and as well as my normal routine I have been driving my mum to and from hospital, taking her shopping and helping her with all the jobs that she can't manage to do on her own. When I got in on Saturday evening after visiting David and then doing my food shopping I was trying to get on with the washing while preparing a meal. I must have had a senior moment because I suddenly realised that I had filled the washing machine soap dispenser with frozen peas! It is much harder to get them out than to put them in, but eventually I got the meal and the laundry back on track.

My step father is making good progress, mum said that you can tell he is getting better because he is moaning all the time. When I went to see him on Saturday treated us to a monologue about his waterworks, eventually mum got cross with him and insisted on a change of subject, he started to tell us about his bowels instead until mum gave him a murderous look and he decided to discuss his laundry instead. I am so glad he is getting better, but it is hard work at times!

Robbie arrived home on Sunday afternoon, and on the way home he popped into Morrisons to buy meat and rolls for his lunch at work. He made an unauthorised purchase, a frying pan. I was furious because it was expensive, he hadn't consulted me and it was so small that you could only fry one egg at a time. I told him he had to take it back because I didn't want a frying pan, but when he told me that the carpet hadn't been hoovered for days (I did it yesterday!)
I decided I may have a use for it after all – he can wear it!

Fighting a Losing Battle

Sometimes I feel that I am fighting a losing battle, every day I do several loads of washing but we appear to have a self filling laundry basket and however much I do there is still more waiting. There is an unwritten rule that any money that turns up in the washing pile goes into my money jar. Usually it is the odd coin from Sam's pocket (why do boys trousers have so many pockets these days?) but on Sunday I found that Robbie had decided to go one step further in the money laundering stakes. He had left a £5 note in his shirt pocket and it emerged from the washing machine damp but intact, I wasn't allowed to keep it for my jar, but at least it didn't stain the shirt.

On the subject of laundry, Robbie hasn't adapted well to doing his own ironing, in fact on several occasions I have come down to be confronted by a vision of Homer Simpson in his pants busy ironing a shirt – it is not the best start to the day! I think a week of doing his own shirts has made him more appreciative. I spoke to him about it at the weekend and he squirmed when I reminded him what he had said the week before. I decided to give him another chance as far as the ironing is concerned, but if he complains again I will starch his smalls!

The Continuing Saga of Socks

Robbie bought new socks when he went to the Marks and Spencer sale at the weekend. Since Saturday they have been parked on the unit in the hall, I think he is doing it to taunt me because I am not keen on the lurid colours, black and orange, navy and pink, bright green and black and other equally off-putting combinations. A pair fell onto the floor yesterday and Meg found them before I did, so they were a bit grubby. I knew Robbie would moan about it so I put them in the wash and I mentioned it to Robbie that evening. He panicked and insisted that he didn't want me to put his socks in the wash because they would be lost without trace. I was offended but he ploughed on regardless, he said he would wash his socks himself and dry them on the radiator in the bedroom. No way! For someone who is health and safety trained he has some batty ideas, the radiator is not designed to have things draped over it, it is not safe. In fact if he drapes wet socks all over the bedroom his own safety may be at risk too! Oh well, if I can't be trusted to wash his socks, I'm certainly not capable of washing and ironing his shirts, it looks as if he is going to be a very busy boy!

Unpacking

Why does unpacking turn into such hard work? When we got home on Saturday the girls had friends staying so I didn't start the major unpacking until late on Sunday. In theory it should be the simplest thing in the world to put everything back in the place it came from, but either I'm not very good at theory or I'm not very good at reality because the two don't match! How did that large pile of T shirts fit into that small space on the shelf in Robbie's wardrobe, and how could that huge pile of underwear possibly have come from that drawer? Putting away the clothes is the easy bit, at least they had a designated 'home' even if other things have encroached on the space. The big problem is the food, cleaning products and toiletries, they are all 'duplicates' bought for the holiday, so they don't have anywhere to go because there is already a jar of coffee in the cupboard, we already have condiments, tea bags, foil and cleaning stuff in the kitchen, and there is already shampoo, shower gel and toothpaste in the bathroom. All these things extra things have to be put somewhere and it is surprising how quickly the kitchen starts to look chaotic. Then of course there is the washing, I didn't think we had bought much washing home, but since we have got back the washing machine has been on overtime, but the pile in the laundry basket never seems to get any smaller!

How difficult can it be?

What is the problem with thirteen year old boys? For the last three days I have been asking Sam for his laundry and I have encountered every stalling tactic possible. 'In a minute' translates into 'later this week' so I have to ask for the same thing over and over again. He is very keen on his personal space and he hates me poking around in his room, but I always have to threaten to go and get the laundry myself before I get any action from Sam. Last night, three days after my first request, I gave him an ultimatum - produce your laundry within half an hour or I will take up residence in your bedroom. Finally he appeared with a collection of socks and a face like thunder. He dumped the socks next to the washing machine and stormed back upstairs demanding that I should leave him alone. Well, it is a start, but they are just random socks, not pairs. He has two feet, how hard is it to take two socks off in the same place and put them into the laundry basket at the same time? So today I will embark on round two and demand the rest of the laundry, not just the missing socks, but unless my eyes deceive me he also wears pants, PJ's, T shirts and trousers, so there must be plenty more laundry festering somewhere. All this stress just to get his laundry, anyone would think I was asking him to donate a kidney!

Genetic Engineering

Sam and Laura are back at school this morning, they only had Friday and Monday off school because Easter was so early. They have another school holiday coming up in a couple of weeks. Easter has been a bit of a non event for us this year, usually we go to Plymouth to visit family, but with such a short holiday that proved impossible. It is lovely to visit family, but when we had snow on Easter Sunday I was quite relieved that we were at home, it is bad enough driving to Plymouth in good weather, I've had miserable journeys in driving rain and fog before, but thankfully I have never encountered snow.

Sam must be growing, when he put his uniform on this morning his trousers were perilously close to becoming 'ankle bashers' and they will certainly not last until the summer. His blazer is also looking a bit short, but that will have to last for a while longer. I am annoyed about his trousers, I bought him three pairs of M&S trousers for the new school year, they had plenty of growing room (or so I thought) and I expected them to last until the summer, but it looks as if we will have to go shopping in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully it will not be as traumatic as the saga we had buying shoes recently. I think I wrote about the visit to the shoe shop, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, for the next couple of weeks he refused to wear his new shoes. He wore his old shoes and then when I removed those he sneaked out in black trainers, he claimed the new shoes were tighter around his ankle and we had to have a 'frank exchange of views' before he surrendered and went to school in his new shoes. I feel as if I am running a laundry at the moment, Emily is home from university and I have been sorting out all the stuff that no longer fits Sam so I have piles of washing. I know it is mad to wash clean clothes before passing them on for recycling but I can't help it.

Robbie was late home from work again yesterday. He told me he had some exciting news and he had a huge grin on his face. He had been in contact with Wendy, his cousin from USA and she had met up with cousin Bobbie who reminded Wendy that various family members had worked for a well known company building locos. As you can imagine Robbie provided me with a full account of the various classes of loco that the company built, but I will spare you the details. He was delighted by this news and he has decided that trains must be in his genes! I wonder what is in my genes, endurance perhaps?

Robbie went to see the children in Walsall yesterday, just a brief visit to deliver their Easter gifts, then back to work to finish a few things off because he is off to Ireland this morning. He was quite late home so by the time we had eaten I was quite tired and he made it worse by reciting packing lists over and over again. He will be back on Thursday evening so I don't think packing would have proved too taxing, it is just Robbie's way to speak his thoughts and he drives me mad, I had to beg him to shut up.

I correctly predicted that Robbie would want the white shirt that he wore yesterday to take to Ireland, so as soon as he got home I put a load of white washing on. I was too tired to stay up and wait to put it in the dryer so I left Robbie with clear instructions. I often go to bed before Robbie and I am usually asleep within a few minutes, but there is no guarantee of staying asleep. Robbie tends to appear like an apparition at the end of the bed, flapping his arms and sighing a lot - like Marley's ghost without the chains. He launches into conversation regardless of whether I am asleep or awake. Last night I became aware of Robbie's voice saying something about his balls not working anymore, I struggled towards consciousness wondering whatever could be wrong. Further conversation revealed that his shirts had come out of the dryer badly creased and Robbie was blaming the dryer balls (they work brilliantly by the way). I told him to put the shirts on a quick wash and then hang them on coat hangers to dry them over night. The apparition vanished or to be more accurate it stomped off and it was heard rampaging around the house for the next hour or so.

Robbie got to the airport safely this morning and the mystery of the balls was solved - they didn't work because he had stuffed the dryer so that the air could not circulate properly. When Robbie phoned from the airport I told him to take care and stay safe, he replied that he would be fine because he'd had three weetabix this morning - I don't think I will ever understand how that man's mind works!

Brave or Stupid?

Robbie has been ranting about his socks again. He had a major 'man stress' about them on Saturday, claiming that all his best pairs of socks had been stolen. Yes, stolen!

I wonder who he thinks the sock snaffler might be. Sam has a whole draw full of socks so I doubt he has any inclination to 'borrow' Robbie's socks. The girls cringe at the thought of his socks and there is no way that they would touch them. I have better things to do than steal socks, so that only leaves the dog and the cats - unless the guinea pig is selling them on ebay! I know times are hard but I am not aware of a booming market in second hand socks and I doubt we are being targeted by a burglar with a foot fetish!

Robbie didn't think I was taking the matter seriously enough, so he gave me an ultimatum. Either I take better care of his socks or he will have to wash them himself from now on. Guess what, I chose option two! He will be dealing with his own smelly socks in future, and he can look after his own 'smalls' too, after all if there is a sock snaffler about it is only a matter of time until they progress to 'bigger things'.

Obsessions 14.09.2007

Robbie has been at it again - getting obsessive. He is struggling to cope because I am re organising the kitchen cupboards and I haven't consulted him, so he is feeling really out of control. He has moaned about every new container or storage box and demanded to know exactly what it was for and why. It came to head when I bought a towel rail and he had a moan about it and demanded to know where I thought I was going to put it - I was so tempted to speak my thoughts! I think he got the message and he has been a bit more cautious about kitchen matters for a day or two. Instead he has directed his attention to socks. He claims that his new 'best' socks have been pilfered. Why is it always his 'best' socks that go missing? He went on and on about them being from M&S as if they should get preferential treatment. I have no interest in his socks, I just wash them, dry them and pair them up and I told him very clearly that if he was suggesting that I lost them in the wash he could do his own laundry in future. There was a sudden backtracking and a hint that Sam could be responsible. Two points cast doubt on this, I bought Sam 30 pairs of school socks for the start of term and if Sam tried to wear Robbie's long socks he would look ridiculous, they would go almost up to his thigh. I don't think they are lost at all just in the wrong place among Robbie's things. I explained all this to him last night and I thought he had dropped the subject, but I was woken at 1am by a searchlight shining directly into my eyes and a lot of movement on Robbie's side of the bed - he was looking for his socks!! I think he worked out that I was not happy and he beat a hasty retreat, by the time he came to bed I was fast asleep. Of all the things in this world to worry about why choose socks!

The Trouble With Cats 06.07.07

Robbie has been at it again, the Random Robbie's have been coming thick and fast. We were in the car on our way to my mum's for a meal this evening when I noticed a horrible gas like car smell. It wasn't the sort of smell that I would instantly blame Robbie for, so I commented that someone must have a poorly 'cat'. I was referring to the catalytic converter, but Robbie said "Oh yes cats smell really bad sometimes, I remember Felix could be a bit smelly". He's hopeless!

Robbie loves to go to my mum's because she feeds him until he can't eat any more - and that's quite an achievement because he loves eating. Robbie sat down to the most enormous plate of food, but it didn't stop him talking for long. He commented on the last day of the Royal Show being cancelled due to the bad weather and he told us that he listens to Farming Today on Radio 4 every morning. He managed not to share the fact that he is stark naked while listening to Farming Today but the thought must have crossed his mind because he suddenly announced his unique suggestion for saving energy and going green. He thinks we should all go without clothes as it would save on laundry, save energy and eliminate production and distribution costs. We laughed, but he was deadly serious. He went on to say that he absolutely loved to be free of clothes and he thought it would be much better for everyone. I don't think our neighbours are ready for that prospect, come to think of it I'm not ready to cope with that - It would be like an episode of the Moomins.

I sometimes worry about Robbie, he has absolutely no sense. He has a mother in law who spoils him, feeds him and generally makes a fuss of him, all he has to do is enjoy his food. Instead he terrifies her with thoughts of nudity, it was enough to put everyone off their meal.