THE house has resumed its normal size now both the children are back in London.
For several days, rooms shrank and walls bulged as four adults tried to live in close harmony.
The permanently empty fridge and hot water tank are restored to their former state and the shoes and boots that decorated every inch of floor space have been gathered up to go and trip up other unsuspecting people in London N1.
It was lovely to have them here and I miss them like mad now they’re gone – the children, I mean, not the shoes.
My daughter, her world-weary rucksack abandoned in the corner of her bedroom, has traded in the flip-flops for something probably only marginally more appropriate and started a job in Covent Garden this week.
She says she is finding it really difficult to shake off the habits of the past year – in other words, getting up at a respectable hour and going into work each day – and London’s dirt and grime have depressed her already.
The job, for which she travelled from here to London twice last week, for the first and second interviews, and for which she was offered not a penny towards her expenses, sounds as though it was made for her. She is thrilled to have landed it – though probably no more so than Geoff and I are, believe me.
The first pay day is still some way off, so in the meantime she is sleeping (‘crashing out’ is the term, I believe) on the floor in her brother’s flat.
This would be fine except he has just handed in his notice and has three weeks to find somewhere else to live.
So the two of them have decided to house-hunt together, in the company of a friend of my son’s (‘she’s not my girlfriend, Mum, all right?’).
I know the idea of siblings sharing a home is not unusual, but my two? I shudder when I recall how they used to scratch each other’s eyes out and how my son would taunt my daughter until she left the room in tears.
I don’t imagine this will happen again, but I do hope I won’t be called in to break up the spats any more. My skills as a mediator might help solve the Middle East crisis, but they are unlikely to keep the peace between a warring brother and sister.
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