That Cabaret Life

Why won't children let their mothers sing? I like to sing. Admittedly, I can only remember the first line of any song. Still, I like to sing that line and do it tunefully. But children like to keep their songbirds caged and dark. "Don't sing," my youngest son dictates from the table where he plays with plastic soldiers, guns moulded and ready. "I mean it. Don't sing." He fires a cannon and three men die in friendly fire. "Why not?" I ask, my painted smile slipping as I stand in the spotlit darkness of my kitchen cabaret. "Why can't mummy sing?" I lob my question into the blackness and hear my six-year-old's voice: "We like it quiet." This from boys who moments before, arms spread wide and mouths a-roar, were jet screaming round the table. The super trouper flickers and turns off.

Sofa so good

We bought a sofa yesterday. Having put up with a two-seater sofa since we moved up here, I finally rebelled and insisted I wanted something I could lie down on. Fair's fair. There is nowhere to go out to at night up here which means I am forced to lie on the sofa and watch TV. I wouldn't do that normally.I'd be out at gallery openings, first nights and glamorous parties - honest. You'd have seen the pictures in those magazines you read at your desk when you are supposed to be working. Even though I am very short, a two seater sofa means my feet jut out over the end. Every night as I gaze at my feet, the irritation grows. It is the sort of thing that Balkan countries would have called the "The Sofa Question" and gone to war over - hence a trip to one of those large sofa showrooms. I didn't think these places actually existed outside the adverts of lounging beautiful couples, but they do. The only problem I had shopping for the sofa is that I am no longer one pedicured half of a lounging couple, I am the nail-quick biting mother of three noisy children who all had to come along. The two boys decided to treat sofa shopping as another soft play opportunity while the baby just screamed to draw more attention to us incase anyone was missing her brothers' antics. The only thing more irritating than the cheery sales assistant pretending to find my children charming ("Is that you making all that noise? Is it? Is it?") was the fact she demanded an extra £120 for fabric protection. Obviously we didn't have to take them up on that, she told us, gazing adoringly at my two boys dismantling her dried flower display. "But, I think you'll need it." Ofcourse I need it. Why then don't they just spray it on automatically? Because they see an opportunity to slap an extra £100 surcharge on "Wimmin with mucky kids" presumably. I should have bartered for it with a child.