Wednesday 22nd June 2011

It’s a little documented fact, that household provision of milk is not controlled by demand or consumption, but by habit. Thus, a household that regularly uses four litres of milk per week will ignore indications to the contrary (such as, the fridge being empty, or overflowing, or a holiday coming up), pop the regular four litres in the trolley and move on.

Thus is was that this morning I made a hot chocolate for Lara, reached into the fridge for the next carton of milk and found to bleary-visioned horror there was none. The unforeseen circumstance leading to this calamity was the exponential increase in milk consumption of late, due to Lara’s sudden liking of hot chocolates. This change is a vastly welcome one, as she has for the last few days been getting her full dose of calcium per day probably for the first time since she was weaned. The joy of the new developments had, however, not filtered through to the purchase department.

Now, the Family Cold (which is also the Merewether Heights cold and has for the past two weeks laid waste to school attendances among teachers and pupils alike) had been dancing on my skull and playing juggling balls with my tonsils the whole night. No tea was simply not acceptable. With an oral cavity of similar texture and ambience to the bottom of  dried-out fish-tank, I set off to Coles at half past seven. Not before searching for keys (several trips up and down stairs, stumbling the while), locating them, going to the car, finding my glasses case empty, searching for the glasses, finding them, misplacing the keys, finding them, stumbling over stuffed toys, backing out and realising I should have taken the sunglasses instead. Things DO NOT work before a cup of tea.

Eventually dragging the spoils of war back to the kitchen, made tea and proceeded to start the sandwiches. Had got a fresh loaf of white bread (for a slight change from the wholemeal they regularly have). Out come the chopping board and butter. The moment fingers hit slice it’s apparent something’s wrong. Once again, I’ve managed to get ‘toast slice’ – thick as a BT accounts department employee, that means. The fridge is stuffed as if with wadding to keep out draughts with bread that’s too thick for sandwiches. It is currently leaping into my basket willy-nilly, and I don’t seem to be able to resist. The chances of Lara managing to eat her sandwiches today without gluing the roof of her mouth together are pretty much nil.

Meanwhile, everything has come down at once. The holidays are suddenly just round the corner, next week it’s the school disco and time has well and truly run out. I’ve just got out my large sheet of paper for customary ‘holiday planning’ and am waiting for notification from the Hunter Region Parks – they said they’d send me an email of their programs. Meanwhile it looks like one week of swimming for Lara from the 11^th at least. Then a whole heap of renewals to make, what to book her in for next term, all that gubbins. My nose is running just at the thought of it. To cap it all she’s got her performance today and I’m going to have to take her out of school at 2:30 – reminds me, must lay out some black clothes for her to change into.

Time for another cup of tea.