Pastries.Baked.
Table.Laid by Harry last night—unlike me.
Juice.Decanted into jugs by Harry last night and laid on the table by me this morning.
Salmon for lunch.Poaching.
Sides for salmon.Rice in the rice cooker, ready to be switched on and veggies chopped, seasoned, oiled, and ready to roast.
Dinner.Light bite at the Christmas festival tonight.
Floors.Swept and mopped by Harry last night.
Washer-dryer.Full. I don’t remember putting it on but do have a fuzzy memory of Harry getting up early and leaving our bedroom with a loaded laundry basket.
Dishwasher.Empty and ready to be filled.
Milk for Mary.All of today’s bottles made up and in the fridge, which Harry must have done last night.
I feel like a weight has been lifted. Why didn’t Harry and I talk about things before? It’s stupid. Shaking my head at our idiocy, I spoon a ladle of waffle batter into the machine and close the lid. It’s still early, I wanted to get a head start on food prep for the day and came down to find Harry had ticked off a fair chunk of my to-do list. The itinerary I sent everyone says that we’ll be walking around the Christmas market this afternoon, but the weather app tells me it’s going to pummel it down so everyone else might stay here while I head out to the market. I have to go because I’m on the social committee. Something I’m definitely quitting after this year.Who needs the stress?
Because it’s unlikely the kids will get out later, Harry has taken them out to the small play area down the road. It’s not much, but hopefully they’ll burn off some energy before being cooped up inside with twenty people all day. I hear the door open and the thudding of many pairs of feet coming up the hallway, signalling that they’re back but it’s not my husband’s face that greets me, it’s his best friend.
“Hi, Jake,” I greet him with a genuine smile.
“Lis.” He comes in, carrying Mary. Lucas and Oscar push past him into the kitchen.
When the boys were just babies, as soon as they saw me, they’d hold their chubby little arms out for me to take them from whoever was carrying them at the time. My daughter is nowhere near as clingy, I don’t think she’s even noticed I’m here as she grabs at Jake’s face. Her little cheeks are red from the cold and Jake wrestles to get the snowsuit off her. Do I try to help him? Of course not. Far more fun this way.
“Oh my god, I will never get used to that snowman,” Nel’s voice calls from the hallway before she appears through the door. “It’s kind of creepy.”
I bark out a laugh. Our inflatable snowman was on sale after last Christmas, so I bought it and packed it away until this year. But when Harry unpacked it, we both jumped back a bit. I don’t know what they did to this guy’s face, but it’s not right. “Leave Frosty Junior alone.”
Nel shivers and then catches sight of Jake still jostling Mary out of her snowsuit. “Give her here,” she says, taking the baby from Jake, helpfully moving all three of them toward the dining area and out of my way.
“I found some strays outside,” Harry says, coming into the kitchen with ruddy cheeks and his green bobble hat that matches his eyes. He comes straight over to me and kisses my cheek before pulling his hat off and ruffling his golden hair, making it perfectly messy.
“So glad you brought them in, now we have babysitters.” I smirk as I take the cooked waffles out of the machine and ladle another portion of batter in.
“Boys,” Harry calls over to where Lucas and Oscar are sniffing around the table to see if there’s anything worth stealing. There’s not, I learnt my lesson from last year when they stole the entire platter of pain au chocolat and ate them under the table. “Why don’t you take Jake and Auntie Nels-Bells into the lounge and play a boardgame?”
“Ooh, can we play snakes and ladders?” Oscar asks Jake.
Before he can answer, Lucas groans. “Wealwaysplay that. I want to play Cluedo.”
“What about Monopoly?” Nel suggests.
“What’s Monopoly?” Oscar asks.
Both Nel and Jake turn to us with horrified indignation. “What have you been teaching these kids?” Jake asks.
“Yes, well we thought they were a bit young to be learning about the property market and infrastructure needs of London. Not to mention the unrealistic expectations it will give them for property prices,” Harry says thoughtfully.
Nel’s eyes widen in excitement as she looks at me. “Can we give them one of their Christmas presents now?”
Harry and I share a look, a brief, silent conversation happening as the boys start begging us to agree. With a nod of heads, I turn back to Nel with a shrug. “If you’d like.”
She hands a now appropriately dressed Mary back to Jake and darts from the room, I hear her disappear outside and then come back in with a large box wrapped in elegant black and white striped paper. “This is forbothof you,” she says sternly. “So, you’ll share nicely or we take it away, okay?”
