I was going to write about something highbrow this week. I had every intention of debating a matter of international significance, like world peace, global warming or Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua.
But my plans to be the next Kate Adie were scuppered by a devastating event closer to home. It’s taken ten years, four months and fourteen days, but I’ve finally encountered that moment that every mother dreads. Oh, the heartbreak. The gut-wrenching pain. The call to the National Association of Motherhood to complain.
I caught the kids impersonating me behind my back.
‘This is Mum,’ I heard my ten-year-old whisper to his wee brother, before screeching, ‘Where are my keys? Where’s my phone? Where’s my purse?’
At which point, the two of them buckled with giggles and I made a mental note to confiscate their pocket money until they reach middle age.
For the record, I don’t screech. In times of stress, panic and lost items, I just calmly raise my voice to a pitch that could crack glass. It just so happens that it’s a daily occurrence because I honestly think there’s some supernatural force that moves my stuff around when I’m not looking.
I need Derek Acorah to pinpoint why everything I put down seems to get beamed up by a paranormal intervention.
There’s a planet somewhere that’s populated by thousands of odd socks, 546 pens, 34 umbrellas, several mobile phones, a few pairs of knickers, my black cardigan and the raffle tickets I bought from a guy who came to the door last month.
The only consolation is that usually things turn up eventually. This week, one of the great mysteries of the year was solved without bringing in paranormal help or the CID.
I once had a light-pull in the bathroom that had a gorgeous crystal bauble on the end. Please don’t judge me – I never claimed to be anything other than eye-wateringly naff in my interior design skills.
Sometime over the Christmas holidays, the crystal bauble broke off and I carefully placed it in the black hole that is the kitchen drawer, to be repaired at a later date. When I went to retrieve it, it had vanished.
I searched. I tidied. I cleaned. I rearranged. I interrogated the children. I accused the husband. I may have uttered a mild screech. And the poor dog almost got done on charges of theft and sent to puppy borstal.
Eventually, I accepted that it was another one of those things that was just inexplicably missing. I’d pushed the mystery to the back of my mind until mid-term break when the school sent home the children’s work for the first few months of the year.
Piles of spelling exercises. Books full of sums. Colourful artwork.
And the star of the show? A junk robot – a two-foot-tall creature made of toilet roll tubes, cereal boxes and egg cartons. And, not that I’m biased, but our robot is special. It was undoubtedly a stand-out among its peers, a style maverick in a sea of recyclable goods, and it’s all down to the fact that apparently Low the Elder was unable to resist giving it a unique finishing touch.
Our robot has a crystal belly button.
Mystery solved. And the combination of this discovery and the ignominy of hearing my boys impersonating me has caused a seismic shift in my attitudes. I’m going to chill out and stop fretting over lost goods. Instead, I’m just going to trust that, when Low the Younger brings home the farm he’s building this term, it’ll include my purse, my mobile phone, my keys, thousands of odd socks, 546 pens, 34 umbrellas, several mobile phones, a few pairs of knickers, my black cardigan and the raffle tickets I bought from a guy who came to the door last month.