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Ernie went to school in his beard today. The teacher joked it had been a long weekend and I apologised for not having had the time to shave him. He is, as I am sure you are noticing, a character. I can only apologise to him and the world. This is all my fault. It was always a risk that my genes would be passed on in this way.
I'd had a terrible start to the day, having woken up at 2.30am with a mild panic attack (nothing like the ones I got when I used to drink, but still unsettling enough for me not to be able to get back to sleep for 3 hours). I drifted off for an hour or so after 5, but this was not enough sleep and I thought the day might go badly.
I am doing a sponsorship read for a car in the next week or so and the manufacturers kindly delivered me one. Not to keep sadly, but to try out for the weekend. The man was coming to pick it up at 9am.
I was pretty sure I'd put the key in the key container, but it wasn't there. I frantically searched everywhere I could think of that I'd been, even emptying the garden bin and digging up the garden a bit, as I'd harvested a tiny crop of potatoes over the weekend. How could I have lost the key? The man was on the way in a lorry to pick the thing up and he'd be annoyed if I had to send him away to get a spare.
I've been wearing jogging bottoms that spill the contents of the pocket every time you sit down - there are zips on the pockets cos they must have realised it was a shit design, but obviously I forget that every time so have the delight of my phone falling into the road every time I get in the car. I looked in chairs and under cushions, but to no avail.
Then, by fortune alone, Catie went to get something from Ernie's room and saw it on his bottom bunk bed. I lie there while he goes to sleep on the top bunk, but had forgotten about that as I retraced my steps from the weekend.
I took the kids to school in the hire car and on the way suddenly became aware that my wedding ring was missing. What was happening to me? I had a vague memory of taking it off because it had been feeling a little bit tight and putting it on my knee. But where had I been? And why hadn't I put it back on again? Had it been at the football match? Surely not.
Catie was no doubt already annoyed that I'd been flapping around the house looking for a car key. How would she react if I told her I'd lost my wedding ring? Why had I even taken it off? What was I hiding?
What if I'd lost it in this hire car and the lorry man drove away with it. I probably wouldn't even be able to ring him because my phone would almost certainly have fallen into the footwell when I left the car......
Luckily it turned out that the ring was in my bed. I had taken it off in the blur of last night's failure to sleep and panic and then forgotten about it. My marriage would survive. For now.
It's ridiculous it's lasted this long.
And guest news for the 3rd November RHLSTP is up in the badger's secret area and beneath the paywall for Substack paying subscribers.
