Four divided by two
All change in the Ditum household. Just a few weeks after my son moved out, launching himself fully onto the world after a post-graduation hiatus, we were dropping my daughter off at university. This is momentous for all of us: I felt emotional when I was delivering my son to his halls four years ago, but this time I know it’s the beginning of the end to this chapter of parenting.
From now on, the majority of my parenting will be done remotely, and the job of “mum” will take up considerably less of my time. After nearly 25 years (and more than half my life), I can do what I like. It’s an eerie feeling in some ways: the death of the primary identity of my adulthood. Who am I if I’m not looking after other people?
A loss, yes, but also a gain — in terms of space, and in terms of freedom. The question is what to do with it all. I start by giddily accepting all invitations. Parties, plays, dinners: if it’s not taking place in my house, there’s a good chance I’ll be there. I’ve booked tickets for every band I like playing in the next six months.
But on our first night as empty nesters, me and my husband don’t want to do anything so exciting. Instead, we buy a four-pack of lager, head to a motorway Premier Inn near our daughter’s campus and settle in to watch a Jack Reacher movie in bed and fall asleep. It’s the most fun I’ve had in ages.
* * *
At the same time, the building work that has been ongoing in our house for the last two years is finally coming to its end. After the re-roofing, the re-wiring, the re-arranging of some internal walls and the total revamping of our bathroom, finally the new downstairs floor has gone in. All that’s left now is some cabinetry and for us to decorate and furnish.
The problem is that, after all the work, we don’t actually have much money left over. My free time is now spent scouring eBay and Gumtree and driving around the South West in my quest for a bargain. But, not yet two years into my driving career, I still don’t have the confidence to handle a van.
So when we head to a manor house in deepest Wiltshire to pick up a sofa, my husband is the one at the wheel of the hired Luton.
First, Google Maps directs us to do a circuit of a nearby hotel’s grounds (they seem to be setting up for a wedding as we trundle around); then we nearly get stuck crossing the manor house’s bridge (yes, they had their own bridge); finally, a fox makes a suicide dash in front of us, and my husband has to bring 3.5 tonnes of metal to an emergency stop. When we finally get the sofa inside, my husband is extremely ready for a sit down.
A novel experience
The combination of newfound quiet and newfound sofa means I am recovering my fractured reading habit, tearing through books in a couple of sittings rather than relying on a long train journey to make progress. One of the first things I enjoy in my refreshed living room is the memoir Feh by Shalom Auslander.
Auslander’s brilliantly funny, and brilliantly offensive, novel Mother for Dinner is one of my favourite novels of the last few years (no spoilers, but the title refers not to a dinner guest but to a dinner dish). Feh is equally wonderful — a meditation on life as a man whose entire worldview has been shaped by a sense of inadequacy, or “feh”.
This is laugh-out-loud stuff from the first pages, where Auslander recalls his childhood rabbi reading to him from “a book called You Suck. The first part of You Suck is known as The Old Testament.” But it gets its jokes from the seriousness of Auslander’s self-loathing: comedy is his answer to the bitterness. By the end, he’s traded miserable “feh” for the joyous laughter of “heh”. It’s only one letter, but it’s a whole new philosophy.
I’m very overdue for a catchup with one of my friends. She’s recently moved near to one of Bristol’s most hipster streets, so we head to a cocktail bar there called Spirited and have a great time. Their current menu is inspired by the Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli (told you it was hipster): you can choose from a Totoro, a Kiki or an Arrietty.
But I love a challenge so I’m drawn to the No Face, named after a menacing kabuki-masked character in the film Spirited Away, which promises bacon-infused sake, spring onion and miso. The mixologist (heavily tattooed) comes over to check I’m happy with my choice, and I am: it’s delicious. “Oh good,” she says, relieved. “Some people seem very confused by it.”
Which makes me wonder who, exactly, is ordering bacon-infused sake and then being confused when that’s exactly what they get?
D’oh! A deer
Visiting my parents, I’m sitting in the living room when a movement in the back hedge startles me. “It’s a fox!” I exclaim, then, less certainly: “A really big fox?” It’s actually a muntjac, tripping its way through the beech on its way somewhere. My dad goes out to investigate, but the muntjac, which seemed to know where it was going, has already slipped away.
For a long time we marvel at this unexpected visitor and wonder what it was getting up to. But the truth is, living in the countryside, your own sense of territory is never the only one that counts. Maybe the muntjac wondered what we were doing watching TV inside its patch.
