...anyway the ex-husband came round to see the kids.
And there were no kids - just me. For five hours. Five long hours during which I realise that I have nothing much to say to him after we've listed what we've been doing like the social diary of divorce... How did I ever chatter to him so easily and how did I ever think he 'got' me, when actually all he did was nod in the right places, my words skimming off him like Teflon?
Doesn't matter. What's done is done. He brought me a nice present from Lebanon, and I cooked him dinner. Home made pesto but with the weird addition of chick peas instead of nuts as I had anticipated cooking for the whole family and one of them is allergic to nuts. That one was off listening to Che Guevara's daughter speak at the House of Commons. The younger was off breaking up with her boyfriend for the second time. The boy, like all men I think, likes to do the death-by-a-thousand-cuts break up, in as much as 'we're just on a break' 'it's not forever' 'don't wait for me but...' and so now they're not together but 'friends'. Yeah. Friends. I'd like to slap his damn 'friends' face till his head spins for causing even as much as a frown to pass over my little girl's brow.
So instead of the big family dinner - two kids, cousin, father, me, cat - it was just the ex. Even the cat disobliged by preferring to torment a small mouse in the garden which ran over my foot when I tried to separate the two. In the dark, it was not pleasant.
I served him with a lovely bright green bowl of pesto - worthy of Da Maria in Genoa, and a salad of pea-shoots, the one yellow sunburst tomato that ripened on the vine, beetroot, softened goats cheese and warmed honey drizzled over some 60p a pop from Mecanico, figs. It looked like a work of art. I even gave him the duck breasts I hadn't cooked and the goats cheese to take home. I hope they choke his girlfriend.
I mean, we too are 'friends' but I'm not a fricking saint.
I tried not to think of the first time we had pesto - in Alassio on our honeymoon.
I'm sure he didn't.
And there were no kids - just me. For five hours. Five long hours during which I realise that I have nothing much to say to him after we've listed what we've been doing like the social diary of divorce... How did I ever chatter to him so easily and how did I ever think he 'got' me, when actually all he did was nod in the right places, my words skimming off him like Teflon?
Doesn't matter. What's done is done. He brought me a nice present from Lebanon, and I cooked him dinner. Home made pesto but with the weird addition of chick peas instead of nuts as I had anticipated cooking for the whole family and one of them is allergic to nuts. That one was off listening to Che Guevara's daughter speak at the House of Commons. The younger was off breaking up with her boyfriend for the second time. The boy, like all men I think, likes to do the death-by-a-thousand-cuts break up, in as much as 'we're just on a break' 'it's not forever' 'don't wait for me but...' and so now they're not together but 'friends'. Yeah. Friends. I'd like to slap his damn 'friends' face till his head spins for causing even as much as a frown to pass over my little girl's brow.
So instead of the big family dinner - two kids, cousin, father, me, cat - it was just the ex. Even the cat disobliged by preferring to torment a small mouse in the garden which ran over my foot when I tried to separate the two. In the dark, it was not pleasant.
I served him with a lovely bright green bowl of pesto - worthy of Da Maria in Genoa, and a salad of pea-shoots, the one yellow sunburst tomato that ripened on the vine, beetroot, softened goats cheese and warmed honey drizzled over some 60p a pop from Mecanico, figs. It looked like a work of art. I even gave him the duck breasts I hadn't cooked and the goats cheese to take home. I hope they choke his girlfriend.
I mean, we too are 'friends' but I'm not a fricking saint.
I tried not to think of the first time we had pesto - in Alassio on our honeymoon.
I'm sure he didn't.
