failing marriage and fancy dress

Hubby has just gone out to a dance bar with a colleague of his. He says it's to pay the bar bill from the other week when a bunch of them nearly got arrested (they didn't, but did get to leave without paying). However, he is with a chap who is, shall we say, subject to occasional moral ambiguity, so who knows what they are up to? Certainly not me. Hubby says if he's not home by 10.30 then it probably means he's in jail. I was oddly reassured by this remark. What does that say about the state of our marriage? (It probably says the same as it said last night when I moved across the bed to place my cheek against his manly chest and tell him I loved him, and he took the opportunity to look at his watch and tut about how late it was).

So he's out, and as I've had yet another tedious day looking after a child who's not-quite-ill-enough for me to feel sorry for, but not-quite -well-enough to go to school.

Out of sheer boredom, I have spent far too much money on Amazon on witches and wizard costumes, as one does, to stave off the tedium. But at least I'll be on form for the next round of annoying fancy dress parties...This weekend Son has been invited to a Gladiator party on Saturday and a Rockstar party on Sunday (can't think why he is so popular when all he does at school playtime is read Harry Potter books). Why can't someone just have a shorts-and-t-shirt party for a change? Son said he didn't want to be a gladiator, he'd rather be a lion, so I ordered a lion costume, but of course it hasn't arrived. Son says he won't be allowed to go to B's party unless he is in fancy dress. And he says he doesn't want to go to K's party because he doesn't want to pretend to be a rock star. So it looks like he'll have another weekend watching Harry Potter and wondering why his spells don't work on Gary.

I'm quite keen for Twin 2 to get ill now. Twin 1 has been moping about all day saying how much she misses school. It made me mildly depressed as I'd put an unusual amount of energy doing craft and activity books with her this morning (oh, alright, she did a bit of colouring and we made a princess from a craft kit - I know this is what some mums do for their kids every single day after school. I like to tell myself that my laissez fair attitude to extra curricular activities is because I want my children to be creative and self-reliant, but it actually just means I'm a lazy slapper who really can't be bothered to get the painting stuff out). At least if her sister were here they could have pretend tea parties and dress up as a bride and spiderman, respectively.

And whilst they were doing that I could begin on another book from the increasingly high pile on my bedside table (next is a toss up between Azincourt - which Hubby says anyone English has to read - and the latest one from Tash Aw. I've just finished The Little Stranger, which was really good. People keep pressing books on me, and the more I read, frankly, the more disheartened I get at ever being a decent writer. The problem is, I'm a bit addicted to it now.).

Anyway, better scoot: those lunch boxes won't pack themselves, you know! xx