The Sabbath Covenant

On Sunday I have a well feeling, so well in fact that I came up with the plan of an ironathon. As the sleeping beauties doze, I cycle to the body torture class and, while ruminating in 'child's pose' something strikes me about the date. This happens every year in a different way. I'm convinced it's a mind trick. I remember it is twenty four years to the day that I got married and around that time I'd have been soaking in a bath in the Caledonian in Edinburgh. There, that's commemorated. 

Sunny day at the office

Back at HQ I ask if the cost centres would like to join me in ironing our own tea towels and bed linen so that we can save on the cost of sending the ironing out? Cost Centre#2 is way too into his avocado on toast, checking his phone, watching Attenborough dolphins or prepping for his finals to be bovvered. That just leaves me and Cost Centre#1 to earn major brownie points and designate another job to the child, like hoovering the car, and that unsurprisingly elicits a wha'ever.

What could be so hard I thought, they're just bits of square fabric, big and small, I encourage cost centre no. 1, Ironman himself, to watch TV while doing it. ‘No way,’ he grumbles ‘I just want to concentrate and get it done’. So unlike me. You'd wonder how the genes get divvied up. And he's through his pile in no time while I'm still there four hours later having paused and re-started the same film over and over while I ponder what to do about the friend I've suggested becoming a tenant. Will I phone, text, email, forget about it? Not a bit, I'll invite him to a long overdue dinner and take it from there. Some things can only be discussed over comforting food and more comforting wine.

By now, I've had the talk with the Absentee Boyfriend, whose guidance on sundry matters can be enlightening. We are avowedly total opposites and merely share an interest in music trivia and, tangentially, each other, though that is only because he is more often in flight than in my neighbourhood. He's taking a back seat on this one, having met all candidates, he's just going to watch and listen from his eyrie in the Alps. And back me up as is his wont.

I've spent so long writing all day that dinner is hastily prepared half an hour in advance of arrival, including a quick cycle to the off-licence for a bottle of wine. I'm resolved not to make it a late night. Tenant prospect/friend arrives well armed with two bottles, so that puts restraint on ice, so to speak. He dazzles me with his latest business ideas while the food is crustating in the oven. A new chicken recipe I made up as I chopped and peeled and found candles to light. Standards have to be met; this fellow is used to posh dining.

Suffice to say, he thinks it is good timing and could be a welcome breathing space while he entrepreneurs between Dublin, New York and all over Europe. I even offer front parlour as his office. He'll be travelling for a few days and we agree he moves in this Thursday, though for the sake of my landlady blog I'll have to be quite circumspect about my diary, as I know he reads this. Beware young man!