Easter at home

David returned from Amelia’s yesterday morning bearing leftover chicken, home-made rock cakes (“I know you sorely miss home baking darling”) and the look of a defeated man. Still, he perked up after a cup of coffee and a rock cake. Whilst the dogs were crunching on the leftover chicken (no, not the bones, dry old bird) David announced that he had a confession to make. I must admit, my heart stopped. What with all the shenanigans going on with Lydia, Mike and Susan, a tiny part of me fully expected his next words to be “I’ve met someone else”. But it was far, far worse than that.

“Mum’s coming for Easter. I couldn’t help it. She asked and I couldn’t leave her, Marigold is going to her daughters for the weekend and she’d have been all on her own and……..” he tapered off as he caught sight of my expression. I love my husband dearly. I do. But at that moment I could have cheerfully murdered him. And Marigold and her daughter– whoever they are.

My silence prompted him to continue “I’ll take Mackenzie with me to pick her up on Friday and I’ll be as late coming home as I dare – and then we can drop her back mid-morning on Monday and have lunch out, just you, me and Mac.” I was mentally planning to look up the most expensive restaurant in Sevenoaks when a memory prodded at my brain. I had already invited Lydia and Matthew for lunch on Easter Sunday – I asked her yesterday and, for someone who was dickering over her relationship with a man 14 years her junior she was remarkably keen on accepting for both of them. This wouldn’t ordinarily be problem – after all, Matthew is Amelia’s first grandson – but Amelia has a huge problem with extra-marital goings on. She’s not over the fact that her only son remarried with indecent haste after his divorce came through. I think she was most disappointed when it took a year for Mac to appear – she had the shotgun all ready. And she would have used it too.

Plus, Bea has arranged an Easter Egg hunt in Dulwich Park on Sunday morning and I really could not cope with Amelia wittering all the way round – she’s got a pathological hatred of public parks - “They’re full of Dogs Doings, Perverts and Joggers” - but it’s not enough to prevent her from coming along. Oh no, why let a pathological hatred of something get in the way of a good old moaning session. I also wanted to wangle a “sighting” of Matt and Lydia by Mike and Susan. Oh God, why does David do this to me.

I outlined the problems to him. He came up with a number of solutions but they didn’t, sadly, include putting his mother off. Apparently he’s going to amuse his mother all day on Saturday so I will have little or nothing to do with her, he will take both her and Mac to the Easter Egg hunt on Sunday morning, leaving me to cook the beef (I had planned to have lamb but Amelia doesn’t like lamb “far too greasy, it Gives Me Heartburn”) and all the trimmings. And he promised to keep an eye on the situation over dinner to ensure that no-one mentioned divorce, sex outside of marriage, separations, “b*stards and harlots” and religion. This will be a challenge, not least because Mac is absorbed with all things Easter and tells all and sundry that we have hot cross buns “because Jesus ate them when he got cross”, but that Amelia, when she wants to, can be rather holier than thou. She had an attack of the vapours last year at the Nativity play because it wasn’t a traditional version and harangued Mac’s nursery teacher for ten minutes afterwards until David dragged her away. Miss Peterson avoided me for the whole of January.


But, it’s been arranged so I’ve got to bite the bullet. I need to shift all of the junk that has accumulated in the spare room since her last visit and get used to living in a tropical atmosphere. But first, I must tell David that I’ve got my eye on the biggest chocolate bunny in Ayres the Bakers. He’ll know what I mean.