Other people's houses

Imagine if you can the most child unfriendly house in the world. Then add ornaments, and more ornaments, and some pot pourri.

We spent the weekend in my husband's 'Daddy flat', his temporary home away from home until we sell our house and buy a family one in our new area. It is almost perfect. A Granny annexe to a large house with oft-absent residents it has a fabulously large garden with swing seat, dark places to explore and plenty of grass to roll and play on. There's a park at the end of the road with a cricket pitch (toddlers like cricket, who knew?) and great play area. There's even a local duckpond. Then you go inside. I'm using artistic licence here, it's not that bad, but this Granny flat was until recently lived in by a real life Granny and she liked things pink, frilly and most probably found in the magazine that comes with the Sunday People.

Decor issues aside we had a lovely sunny weekend. I even got a lie in. On Monday I snuggled into the duvet as my husband came to tell me it was time to get up as he needed to leave for work. I ignored him. He started to pull back the covers so I resorted to desperate measures. 'Can I have a love?' He's such a sucker. He pulled me close and I fell back into almost-sleep, still relaxed enough to not care about my morning breath, but awake enough to clutch him closer when he tried to leave. Anything to avoid having to properly wake and Deal With The Children.

He soon sussed me of course and insisted he really HAD to go unless, you know, I fancied, well, you know ... quickly? I couldn't quite manage opening my eyes so I made a mental assesment using my ears. I could hear the strains of CBeebies from the living room. The baby was giggling. In hindsight she was also giggling when I found the toddler pressing a pillow on her face, so this probably wasn't a safe indication we were free to go ahead, but no-one was crying and he did say quickly.

'Have you got any ...?'

My husband jumped across the bed and rifled in the dressing table drawer for a condom. I waited. He rooted and cursed. I waited. He chucked a couple of t-shirts on the floor. I waited. He banged about a bit. Still waiting.

'Where did I put the damn ...'

The moment had gone of course. One of the children started crying. It's a good job the flat's shower also has a habit of going cold every couple of minutes.

Packing to go home in a moment of wifely generosity I grabbed the bag containing two weeks worth of his dirty washing, reasoning I'd probably be doing it if he still lived with us. We're going on holiday on Thursday and I do like him to look vaguely presentable when I take him out in public. Once back, as I dragged t-shirts, pants and trousers out of the machine something glinted and caught my eye. I pulled and four Durex appeared, safely hidden, as he'd thought, under a pile of clothes. They'd managed to survive a 40 degree stain removal cycle with added Vanish spray.

Still, maybe I should be thankful. All of those pink frills in the bedroom would probably have put me off my stride anyway.