M sent me email this morning saying that he doesn't want to come home yet. I think he probably will, though, as he was supposed to be back at work on Monday. The new plan is that they'll be home by Monday night but I guess we'll see. Joseph, mentioned previously here in dispatches, came to see me yesterday and told me that he thinks he's got a job on the ferries, so he might not be able to work for me while I go camping with the kids in August. The curse of my holidays returns.

In 1993, when Kirsten was 2 and I was pregnant with Ian, we took a week off and went to stay at Alberta Beach at M's parents' cabin. We'd been there about twenty minutes when the kids at the gas station we ran at the time phoned us and said there was an irate customer who was planning to sue us, for M overfilling this guy's daughter's oil in her car. That pretty much meant the week was spent on the phone with lawyers... and it rained non-stop.

Didn't take another holiday for a long time. In 1999, when I'd been running the coffee shop for two years, I tried to take a week off, and stay home, and M went down to the shop and had a big fight with one of my staff, and it was hell for the whole week, with people crying on the phone. The next year, although you'd have thought I'd have learnt, I tried to take a week off, had it all arranged, made M promise to stay away from the store, and the guy who was supposed to be working for me fell down the stairs while drunk, and I ended up working anyway.

Patterns? Oh, probably. The universe just wants me to keep working, I guess.

as I think I mentioned, it has been a very long time since I lived alone. Ages. I'd forgotten. How little space and stuff I need for myself alone. Kids certainly do fill up life and space, there's always something someone wants, or something that could be cleaned or tidied or tied down or sewn, if it stands still long enough. Someone always has a plan of something fun you could do, be it swimming or walking or playing cards or going out and weeding the garden, I usually order my time based on the demands of four or five other people, if you include M and the children's friends... I come home, and they one by one come and tell me their plans, want to make a cake? play cards? go to the mall to get such-and-such a birthday present? go to the movies? read a book? give the dog a bath? sell Rachel to gypsies? and I give them all time frames: cake, maybe later. I'll play a game of cards with you at bedtime. We can all go to the mall tomorrow, when I get off work. I don't have money for the movies, maybe on the weekend. If you pick a book I'll come when I'm finished the dishes. The dog doesn't need a bath, she needs a crewcut. We're not selling your sister. Typically, twenty minutes after I come home from work I will have promised all my spare time to one project or another, and that's after I do my homework and the housework.

Right now, with just me and the dogs, I come home from work, make my supper, eat it, and then? Nothing. Just my homework. I did the housework on Saturday and nothing's moved yet. I remember this from before I had kids... before the tide of clutter invaded my house. Tonight the dogs were goofy so I took them for a walk. Maybe they'll let me sleep in in the morning.

so he calls and says, what are you doing, and like an idiot I tell him the truth: drinking gin and watching Australian porn... (to be fair, however, I didn't know how much sex was in it when I rented it, it Claimed to be a Romantic Comedy...

apparently everyone's worried I won't eat... Mum and Dad are coming to take me out for dinner.

it's very quiet here. The dogs are sulking, they're convinced everyone else went somewhere exciting and they're stuck at home with me. They're right... M and the kids called me last night, they were in Blue River, so I imagine they'll get to Alberta Beach today.

It's been many years since I had a house to myself. I woke up this morning and my first thought was, "I wonder if they're up. What should I make for breakfast" and then I remembered, I'm the only one home. Yesterday I got a ton of school work done, and today should be more of the same. Rachel was very worried, she said I didn't have enough food for a week, and that I couldn't live on Nutrigrain bars...