Vicky Ewan: Comings and goings of a happy life

14 Apr 2024

Torbay Weekly

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Vicky Ewan Comings and goings of a happy life

One recent morning, a thought suddenly occurred to me. It was one of those revelations that appears fully-formed out of nowhere, and I shared it with my husband, keen to voice its validity. We were in the kitchen, each involved in one mundane task or anot

Reporter:

Vicky Ewan

14 Apr 2024 2:30 PM

Email:

torbayweekly@clearskypublishing.co.uk

One recent morning, a thought suddenly occurred to me. It was one of those revelations that appears fully-formed out of nowhere, and I shared it with my husband, keen to voice its validity. We were in the kitchen, each involved in one mundane task or another - washing up, or changing the bin bag, perhaps - when the thought struck me, and I turned to him. “Do you know what we’ve become?” I enquired, with a droll little laugh, like someone out of an elegant play (I like to believe). Inured to my rhetorical whimsy, my husband proffered unhelpful suggestions that I batted away with the patience of angels. Supply finally exhausted, he capitulated to the question, waiting expectantly for my illuminating response (I like to believe).

I did not leave him dangling. “We have become parents whose adult children come home for the holidays!” I crowed, disproportionately triumphant. “I can’t believe it!” Without being able to explain why, I felt like we had achieved something momentous (although, on reflection, it rather seemed the opposite was true. To have children able to return to the familial nest, we had to have children who had been willing to leave; I wasn’t keen to dwell on that truism for too long). My husband agreed, though in a less ebullient manner than I had hoped; perhaps it was a moment of lesser clarity (and incredulity) for him. Perhaps he just wanted to get on with the washing up.

That weekend was witness to a rare planetary alignment that saw my husband’s days off corresponding with our daughters having leave from work and our sons being on holiday from college and school. Plans were afoot for collecting the girls from coach and train stations, and we were all looking forward to the festivities with a good deal of pleasure. The one fly in the ointment was that my elder son had been scheduled to work shifts during three of the four days of the long Bank Holiday weekend, but I was thankful that we would all be together for Easter Sunday at my dad’s house, at least, and was anticipating a veritable feast of roast lamb and all the trimmings with a well-whetted appetite. In the meantime, other household preparations were in the offing. Wading laboriously into his domain, I had pointed out to my younger son some days prior to the weekend that his bedroom, which one of his sisters would be sharing during her visit, was sorely in need of tidying, a task that would include clearing the floor for my vacuuming ministrations.

As a huge fan of his sister, my son was thankfully fairly willing to comply, and set to on the day prior to her arrival without complaint. Following the end of the service for the always inspiring annual Good Friday Walk of Witness, I found myself chatting with a friend about the tasks that awaited me in advance of the hordes (well, duo) descending. This was in reference to her description of a swift changeover taking place in her own household that day, with one adult child's departure and another’s arrival occurring within hours of each other, and the additional (yet not at all begrudged) work this entailed; I fully empathised. This exchange, I later mused, was something of an epiphany for me, revealing as it did that I was far more particular about creating a spick and span space for my daughter's visits than I had been whilst they were permanently under my roof (my housekeeping could be described as regular but uninspired).

It seemed that their recent non-resident status had invoked within me a fear that the blinkers would have been removed from their eyes, leaving me anxious that they might suddenly observe with perfect vision the less-than-exacting domestic standards to which I so tenaciously clung. Nevertheless, as I smoothed duvets and plumped pillowcases, shined mirrors and vacuumed carpets, adorning each room with a (sadly pre-bloom) vase of daffodils as a final flourish, I felt glad that I had fashioned a welcoming spot for my nest-flown chicks. A day or so later, as I wiped toothpaste spatter from the bathroom sink and restocked the toilet rolls, I was feeling far less magnanimous, I can tell you. Can’t wait till they're home again, though.

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Teads Ad

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