Last weekend, Big Seymour spent hours hunched on his haunches, studying grooves in large prefabricated slabs, muttering as he went.
He was trying to get his head around the ancient technology that is UNDER FLOOR HEATING.
Yes, as he quite rightly pointed out, the Romans themselves enjoyed the luxury of warm floors. Which somehow made me feel less extravagant about the whole sordid business.
I am not an “under floor heating” kind of a person. It seems, to me, to be the height of extravagance and snobbery. After all, being cold is good for the soul. The contrast between a cosy, warmed-floored house and the horrors of oh, let’s say, the trenches of the Great War seems just too stark. Have we come so far that condensation on the inside of the windows in the morning is considered archaic? A breach of some kind of human right, even? I pray not. I hope passionately that The Four Little Seymours don’t take their future comfort for granted. Hopefully, two years in a cold floored, condensation-riddled, slightly mouldy shed will make sure they don’t.
Under floor heating aside, there are more exciting things happening inside The Funny Little Bungalow, namely, the arrival of a shiny, pristine, spotless and comfortable new toilet! It’s a thing of beauty! So high and proud, elegant and dare I say, exquisite! This new toilet turned up last night, and was immediately greeted with great affection. Who would be the first to christen it? I asked, expecting polite hands up and an orderly queue.
What I got was a riot. Who would have thought that the FIRST GO on a bloomin’ toilet would be worth actually fighting over? Worth shoving, yelling and screaming for? Not I.
The Four Little Seymours were busy playing “appartments” in their new bedrooms, popping their heads round their doors and greeting one another in a rather hilarious musical display of childish unity. Their game was going along smoothly, until the toilet was secured to the wall, whence the fight to be the first on the throne commenced. Mini Seymour was so vocal in her determination to claim her perceived right that I had pull rank. So who got to use the toilet first? I did.
Yes, they argue over everything. The one that confuses me the most is the argument centering around who is who on a television programme. “I’m the pink one!” – “No! I’m the pink one!” seems like a complete waste of breath and effort, if you ask me. When watching telly, one might relate more to “the pink one” than, say, “the mustard-coloured one”, but who actually cares! There is no more interaction with your siblings than this fruitless argument. You are simply and passively watching Pink and Mustard dash about with big sticks on a screen. That’s it. Surely!
But what do I know? I am just their mother. I can’t always control them or understand what’s going on in their heads (and I fear this is all going to get harder as time passes) but I can (still) control some things. Like who uses the virgin toilet first.
Boom. (I’m inordinately chuffed about that one small victory. )
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