Dubai's Desperate Housewife

DH doesn’t travel very often, so it’s a novelty for me to spend a week’s worth of evenings alone at home. But I’m an enterprising girl, so I looked upon this week as time in which I’d be able to get a few of my long-term tasks done.

Why is there always so much to do?

I was going to get the photos dating back to 2010 into albums with captions and I was going to make significant headway with the scrapbook of DS’s first year of life (he’s nearly three). I had visions of working at the kitchen table in the evenings, the radio playing softly as I sipped liver-cleansing tea and finally got the pictures of our family life categorised into memory books.

I was going to read an awful lot of magazines; I was going to watch the chick-flick movies that DH has taped for me but refuses to watch himself.  I was going to cook the dinners that I love but DH hates (anything with goat’s cheese). I was going to read trashy novels in lavender-oil baths and have ridiculously early nights. I was going to go late-night shopping all alone with time to try things on. I was going to reassess the children’s apps I have on the iPad and download exciting new ones. I was going to do yoga in the middle of the family room, and cycle every evening instead of drinking gin.

Oh, the plans.

Needless to say, when you go to bed early, the evenings aren’t that long – and, when you’re in the midst of the spin cycle that is the school week, five days isn’t long either.

The stack of photos still lies untouched; the scrapbook doesn’t exist; the baths never happened; neither did the cycling, the yoga and the shopping.

So what was I doing for the last five nights? Here’s what I did manage:

-          I got the children to bed by 7.15 every night.

-          I created a lot of space in the freezer by eating curious boxes of unidentifiable food for dinner (with no stomach-aches).

-          I watched “Julie & Julia” (over two nights!).

-          I researched the best children’s iPad apps.

-          I made 10 packed lunches.

-          I drank too much wine at book club.

-          I read the whole of “Two Lipsticks and A Lover” by Helena Frith Powell and learned from it that I need new underwear.

-          I created a delicious pasta sauce involving left-over spinach, crème fraîche, mushrooms, onions, garlic and Parmesan.

-          I took out travel insurance.

Not what I planned, maybe, but not too shabby either. What did you do?