Eiljert Gabbles On

There are some things that I would do almost anything to avoid. Chief amongst these would be seeing “Cyrano de Bergerac” performed by amateurs under the age of 15, trying to learn how to fill in SAP time sheets, or doing my “I think you’ve really found the beginning of something brilliant here” face for more than five minutes at a stretch. All of these things, however, I HAVE done – but there is one thing that I have not done (and to be fair, was not invited to do): a “Disco Break” in the gay bars of Manhattan for six days.

Wife, however, could not have been happier at the prospect, and so she flew over to see Talented Photographer for six days and nights in Manhattan, while I took the week off work to look after the children. Were I to record all of Wife’s exploits here, they’d be hard to credit: the night where the cabaret consisted of a woman dressed as a vagina, rubbing a glitter-speckled plastic tongue up the length of “her” labia; the mid-op transsexual who sodomised himself with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s (as Jude Law inter alia looked on); the pool party to which the wearing of a gold bikini and an Afro wig was (apparently) “de rigueur” – these are but the tip of the iceberg. But – fuck me: childcare is hard work!

Thankfully, Wife (who vanished in a flurry of tears and luggage late on Friday) had left me notes of such regimented precision that there was no way that I could slip up. But I (who had, naively been anticipating a slacking off in the pace of the workplace) was absolutely staggered at the amount of effort, energy and organisation it takes to get three children to school, after school clubs, playdates and then bed, without forgetting to wash and iron their clothes, or buy and cook them food. No wonder Wife is as thin as she is: I can’t imagine when she gets time to eat…

Any full-time carers reading this will no doubt be rolling their eyes and shouting “Well…DUHHHH!” at their screens: but this isn’t a tale of “Professional Guy Takes On The Childcare And Through A Series Of Hilarious Fuck Ups Learns Real Life Lessons” – I did a sterling job, with the children on time, on best manners and well turned out wherever they had to be – but it was a real eye-opener in what should be a mainstay of my professional skills: the ability to walk a mile in someone very different’s shoes (even if the person in question was my wife and the mother of my children).

Anyway: she’s back now, thank God – utterly exhausted and Disco’ed out, needing a holiday to get over her holiday – and so life will resume its usual pattern: and I, for one, will be glad of the rest.