Being in the driving seat

Above is Arundel Castle in the dawn light, taken from the moat in Mill Lane.

This has been a quite productive morning, if somewhat mundane. While Steve had a busy day at work to get stuck into for a change, although his seventy-year-old well rested muscles, might wonder what the sudden panic was about all of a sudden.

My thought was that I would get on with so jobs indoors while he was not under my feet or, asking me to do something else for him when I am half way through a chore that I had well started. Not that I have much to be unhappy about with him because he is ultra-easy going but does like to occupy the driving seat in all things.

My first job was to give the kitchen (His kitchen, as he often calls it), a complete birthday while he was out, rather than just a quick neaten up. Although he does all the cooking and food shopping, he is also a dab hand and making a mess too. So, since I know that he would be coming home on the weary side. I wanted to leave the chef’s workplace ready for food preparation as he likes it to be. Steve is a great imaginative cook and is a fussy about presentation as he is about preparation. When the finished meals emerge, my dish will look identical to his! It doesn’t mean that I eat as much as he does, but rather that he gets to be the dustbin once I have eaten as much as I want. He then polishes it off.

The other day I was chatting on the phone to a very dear friend about my husband’s earlier life. Stephen is a fourth-generation antiques dealer who was brought home from hospital after his birth, to the flat above the family furniture store in Kingston-upon-Thames. Where he lived for his first twenty odd years. He had never worked in any other business then and started a furniture transport business, working for himself after leaving school. He has always been his own boss.

I always make a list of things I have done in my desk diary and apart from the kitchen blitz, I cleaned and tidied elsewhere, made a pair of silky pillow cases from scratch to finish, one wash load, clean the cat litter box, then a spot of gardening. Once I had then cleaned myself to a presentable state, I got on with me latest embroidery. Another little labour of love whilst still in that mode, the fourth in a series. They just need delivering.