Today

 
Is one middle-aged when mornings suddenly become so terribly hard to wake up to? As if enduring a hangover born of crazy cocktails on a permanent basis. 
Today. An early morning doctors appointment with a lady with quite the primmest smile you have ever seen. Tea with no milk because the milkman who has taken to blowing kisses at you is late again.  A gluten free Tiger Loaf that toasts exactly as it should. The spinning of yesterday’s revelation round and round your head. Cold feet.
A conversation with your son who tells you he just doesn’t understand why adults don’t take more advantage of being grown up. Outrage when he realises you have accidentally doodled on the back of his homework. The house messier than it usually is. A spot of red wine still staining the coffee table. Bags to be packed for a weekend in Oxford. The ache for a hug from your Dad. Salt and vinegar rice cakes with marmite and cucumber. Yoga clumsily performed on the bedroom floor. That yearning for a nap that never leaves you. Ten minutes staring at a flickering flame.
Perhaps a film? This one? Or another hour spent re-reading Mrs. Miniver. Funny how re-reading no longer strikes you as a waste of time as it once did, but instead simply re-affirms the truth you long ago injected in to your veins. Peppermint rubbed in to the back of your neck to wake you up. Another cup of green tea. The constant tribal thump of the washing machine.
Eyes closing as you take your elevenses on the sofa. A head-long dive in to the rosemary plant on the kitchen windowsill to wake you up. Yet more dishes to be washed. A puttery hour spent in the bedroom. Wiping away the dust that permanently coats your glossy walnut dressing table: as if to remind you that it is less vintage than it is relic. Creating a pyjama drawer lined in lavender paper. The mattress sprinkled with baking soda and the deadly windows flung open so wide a person could surely just step out of them.
The prospect of two and a half weeks filled with boys freed from the shackles of school. A sense of gloom and gladness at the thought. A sharp smack across your own hand for not being the kind of Mother who treasures every single moment her son forces her to listen to the demise of Wolverine. Easter eggs to buy.
Later, a trip made specially to procure a gluten free Scotch Egg that is your teenage boys favorite treat. Mince and onion in the slow cooker. The return of the grown-man home for dinner. A long bath in Fenjal. An early night.
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