Monday, February 08, 2010

Around the kitchen table

The Man and I sat down to a very calm, civilised breakfast of fresh baked pastries and coffee yesterday morning, around the kitchen table that the previous night had had eight members of both our families crammed around it in raucous enjoyment of each others’ company. We’d all been watching the rugby (I pity the neighbours, apparently in numbers we can make quite a racket cheering and shouting) and at the same time I’d been cooking and helping my brother put up shelves, which involved power drills, dust and hoovers. Everyone took turns entertaining my nephew. He’s quite insistent – ‘Aunty Katie, Peeeeeeease (he doesn’t do Ls yet, which makes talking about clocks quite entertaining) can you come with me and hewp me do XYZ?? [tugs hand] Peeease pease pease?’ ‘Nephew, I’m simultaneously trying to cook everyone supper and help your daddy put up this wall bracket, can we do it later?’ ‘No Aunty Katie, need to do it now!’ Ah what it is to be in favour.

He also takes great delight in sliding the wardrobe doors in one of the bedrooms, because behind one of them is a bathroom – the Magic Bathroom – in which the lights come on all by themselves. Ooooo. Unfortunately he managed to get behind the wrong door and close it, where there were no lights, and we all (just, over the shouting) heard this little shout of, ‘Mummy! Mummy! Help!!’, to much hilarity, poor little chap.

Later, when we were all sitting around the table, Nephew boosted up by a cushion so he could just see over and so his mouth was about at plate level, we realised that it was indeed Nephew’s first dinner party. And as a very good budding guest, he even insisted on helping with the washing up. He loves making a mess with water and suds. Aw.

I am so lucky to have such a lovely family and have such a lovely house for them all to come to.

Recently, I treated myself to a swift. This was a long winded decision but Such A Good Thing. I think, despite initial raised eyebrows at my overexcitement, The Man will think so too as I won’t have to interrupt his telly viewing pleasure any more getting him to hold the skein and also my yarn cakes will be of totally even tension instead of getting a bit tighter at the points where he got distracted by an attempt on goal or a particularly good smackdown. The swift is freshly made and still smells of new wood and linseed oil or some such that’s been rubbed into it to make it gleam. There are brass fittings. My white and red plastic wool winder, usually kooky and retro, looks a bit sheepish next to it. Why is it that some knitting items get upgraded to brass fittings status and others remain solely produced in cheap plastic? Like using Lantern Moon circulars with one of those plastic rotally counter things. Not a good look. Who makes a pretty row counter, please raise your hand?

Work are sending me to work in Paris for a month. This sounds terribly glamorous, doesn’t it? Well, not really. I have laid the law down and taken the budget and booked a decent apartment for myself (I hope) in the Marais (yes I know that’s the gay quarter but it’s also supposed to be very nice and there are loads of restaurants and shops which are open on Sundays), although it’s on the fourth floor, which might make up for lack of gym while there. Last time I was in a sort of Travelodge with a kitchenette for a week, right by the red light district of Clichy, which was just plain nasty. The office, despite the façade and atrium (and executive floor) being beautiful, is pretty uninspiring, and the French like to have their own office each so it’s not very sociable. In fact, surprisingly for a Latin race, they are quite private people. When you’re at work, you don’t talk about home with your work mates. You don’t go out for drinks after work, or even out for lunch, although some have started going down to the cafeteria as a department these days. OK, so there are exceptions to this rule, but you can’t make assumptions! Luckily because of this sort of company university thingy I’m part of, I know a few people there quite well, which is a saving grace indeed. Gosh, can you imagine being away for a month and only talking about work??

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a sweet little nephew there. Loved visiting your blog (found it on Ravelry) and looking at your knitting and house pics. The new fridge is great. I want one just like it. :)

Have a good week!