The Mule

Dear Daughters Brace yourselves, I have a confession to make. It may or may not surprise you. Here goes... I don't like being woken up in the night! I REALLY don't like it! I can't stand it! Maybe you thought it just washed over me - all part of the service - like chopping cheese into chunks or sitting through Waybaloo - well you're wrong. Being woken up and dragged from the delicious depths of sleep two, three, four, five times a night is WAY more irritating than that! WAY MORE! And, quite frankly, I'm bloody well sick of it! It's not just the nights - which are bad enough - it's the evenings too. For five years now I have had my enjoyment of every single evening compromised in some way, either because I've been trapped in a bedroom breastfeeding, singing, storytelling or simply begging you to go to sleep, or because I've had to abandon my delicious food / fascinating film / other grown-up activity, and go back upstairs to soothe you back to...

My opposite neighbours, an orderly couple in their sixties, have for the past week been engaged from dawn til dusk in the task of Pressure Washing.  It started, innocently enough, with their garden path and front step.  Not an activity I would personally have the time or the inclination for, but I was prepared to let it go.  Then they started on the driveway.  Slowly, painstakingly, they spent hours with their newly purchased Karcher, he on a kitchen bar stool pointing the hose, she casting a watchful eye over his progress and popping in and out of their bungalow with cups of tea.  As the electric motor hummed, and a river of water ran down our road, I began to feel irritated. But it didn't stop here.  Once he had totally removed any dirt, moss or character from his driveway, he had to pressure wash his car, which had been splashed with dirt by the hose.  I sniggered slightly as I wondered where this process might end, and whether he might get caught...

My toddler is currently sitting on the sofa, naked, wrapped in a blanket, eating a cold fish finger, and watching CBeebies.  She hasn't been like this all day, you understand.  We've been to a play group, done some cooking, played 'doctors', 'car parks' and 'shop', made playdough, and gone for a leaf collecting expedition.  In between all that I've made several meals, kept the house from the brink of chaos, and fed us both.  Oh, and looked after and breast fed a 5 month old baby.  And yet it doesn't seem to matter how many meaningful activities I fill my child's day with.  As soon as I put the telly on I feel only one emotion - Guilt. For some reason this guilt eases slightly between the hours of 4 and 6pm.  As a child I can remember quite a nice time of day, when, home from school, my mum would bring me a peanut butter and jam sandwich and a glass of milk and let me watch Blue Peter or Krackerjack.  Wholesome. So somehow it seems permissab...