Anniversary

Last night, Big Seymour and I celebrated our wedding anniversary.
This was a bit of an accident.
Neither of us had actually remembered, until a friend with the same anniversary posted something online.
Oops!
Anyway, we managed, at short notice (and thanks to Grandma V for sitting on babies), to arrange to go out and “do something”, much to the Little Seymours’ disgust and protestations. Number One didn’t like it. When asked why, she just said it “didn’t feel right”. Number Two wanted to know exactly where we were going and I couldn’t answer. We were winging it, and being spontaneous. She likes details, and was therefore grumpy. Mini Seymour fully expected to come too, and as for Boy, well, he was happy as long as Big Seymour picked him up some fuel for the mower on the way home.
We left them, squabbling as usual, over who was using whose favourite fork – or some such other quarrel-inducing minutiae, generated from a lack of space.

And so we found ourselves in Horsham, wandering a bit aimlessly, slightly lost without a trail of children to corral and looking for somewhere to eat.
Strangely, however, all Big Seymour seemed to be able to focus on were estate agents’ windows, and million pound properties. Which was fun, but rather pointless. You’d think he was fed up with houses by now. But before too long, there I was, ogling the property porn alongside him.
We just can’t help ourselves.

We shunned the expensive restaurants. Pizza Express was just fine. Whilst this was a celebration, and Big Seymour repeatedly assured me money didn’t matter, we both calculated exactly what a sharing plate of dough balls could have afforded us, should we have chosen not to indulge. A light bulb or two? Maybe. Taps, I suggested?
Apparently, no. Eight pounds eighty doesn’t buy you much in the way of sanitary fittings.

With uninterrupted conversation time on our hands, we discussed The Timescale. At one point, I thought I might get some sort of definitive end date, but as Big Seymour’s brow furrowed, he couldn’t bring himself to commit to anything. Which was probably wise.
We considered the merits of a Little Seymour Number Five. Well, I did. Until I got inordinately annoyed by a throng of children being too loud near our table, whilst their own parents drank wine in peace at theirs. How dare they?
My patience reserve has definitely been depleted.

We were going to go and see a film after dinner, but that just seemed too indulgent, and would have added a few more light bulb equivalents to the night’s spend. Also, it was school night, after all.
So, by half past nine we were back in The Shed, having sourced the fuel for Boy’s mower to keep the little wotsit happy.

As I fell asleep listening to the acorns fall on the wooden roof of The Shed, I pondered how I will actually cope living back in a house one day. Claustrophobia might set in, or heat rash, or migraines. We have become accustomed to fresh air and a lack of central heating. What if I don’t like the confines of brick walls and double glazed glass? These ponderings pleased me, though. It meant that the perusal of those enormous million pound gaffs hadn’t affected me too badly, if I am concerned about leaving this wooden structure we currently call home.

I’m not sure the Four Little Seymours feel the same, though. Quarrel-inducing minutiae is harder to generate if you have umpteen rooms to separate people in.