A Lovely Family Day

The Husband has been feeling charitable and decided to take a day off. To be honest, I'm not sure it was a decision made freely - I basically threatened him within an inch of his laptop to take some time off as it's the school holidays. And we all know that without his laptop The Husband is just a big blob of jelly on the floor. I think he realised that if he didn't have some extra family time then he might come home one night and find the entire contents of me & the kids out on the lawn.

Now the main rule to The Husband taking a day off is that he must absolutely stay in the office until at least 3am the night before. And he mustn't tell me he is going to do this until his normal home time. He stays late for two reasons 1) to avoid a major catastrophe such as a Black Hole forming where his desk sits in his absence and 2) to work two full days in one day to compensate for the day off thus ensuring his company gets more of him than his moaning wife ever could.

The Husband loves to tell anyone who will listen that his "diary changes daily" and a day off booked in advance renders this claim invalid and ruins his business street cred. So to avoid such a disaster he doesn't tell a soul that he is taking a day off (see below).

Now, The Husband is very clever and excellent at thinking up marriage tactics. On the morning of his day off he always lets me have The Lie-In and leaves me dozing until around 9am when he brings me a milky coffee and toast in bed. I then wander bleared-eyed and in love down the stairs for my lovely considerate Husband to announce that for the next hour he is an essential part of a conference call involving the offices in London, Paris and Mars. And of course I can't possibly complain because hasn't he just given me a lovely lie-in and cup of coffee with toast in bed? So I keep my mouth shut and smile sympathetically at him while the children decide to play fighting with sticks and I attempt to gain some control while the poor man is discussing "jumping through hoops" and "being left out in the cold".

The thing is, and I've probably mentioned this before, but The Husband lives in a very different time zone to me & you. He lives in RSHW Mean Time, which stands for Really Slow Hour World. So the one-hour conference call turns out to be one hour and 45 minutes plus another conference call to discuss the original conference call which lasts even longer.

I stay silent.

Around lunchtime The Husband announces that it's time to go to the park for a spot of family fun. Bearing in mind that his mobile phone is a distant relative and therefore is welcome on the trip. You have never seen multi-tasking as efficient as The Husband kicking a ball, pushing a swing, buying a lolly at the same time as dictating a letter to his secretary, presenting to a client and writing a Powerpoint presentation. It is an act worthy of the Britain's Got Talent final.

(Everything The Husband does within his working life utterly cannot wait until The Next Working Day and god forbid there is a weekend looming.)

At around 4pm I calculate that The Husband has spent 2.3 hours with the children and 6.7 hours on the phone with a bit of laptop-love in between. I feel that I am now in a position to mention this as The Lie-In was quite a long time ago. But alas, having a Husband with an Olympic gold in The Game Of Marriage means that he absolutely promises to make it up to me by taking another day off in the Christmas holidays 2015.

So as I sit here writing I wonder if The Husband working on his day off actually stems from his panic at being left alone with the children, which I can understand. Or could it be his panic at having to spend some time with me? Answers in the usual way please...