beenz

it would be fair to say that herself is a little put out. in fact there is smoke coming out of her ears. the source of her displeasure is himself.

as regular readers will know, himself has dodgy kidneys. they are so dodgy that at some point soon they will stop working altogether. when this happens himself will have to have a pipe put in his rather fine belly and will have to pour stuff in and pump stuff out. in preparation for this i have been instructed that i must no longer jump up for a cuddle in case i pull out the pipe.

because himself has dodgy kidneys, his blood is not getting cleaned up properly. this means there are loads of nasty chemicals floating around in his system. the effect of the chemicals is that he is, to put it mildy, difficult to live with. herself generally puts up with this. so does my boy, although my boy often gets the worst of himself's moodiness. my boy copes with this by doing what herself calls "acting out". this does not mean my boy gets involved in plays. it means he does things like borrowing a cigarette lighter from a kid at school and then trying to light a pile of paper with it. as the house is made of wood, and my boy saw fit to put the paper in a bin next to the wall, this was frowned upon.

anyway, the long and the short of it is that, what with her job and himself and my boy, herself has got a bit stressy. this week she burst into tears at court which is a bad move. the lawyer on the other side knows that you are on the back foot if you are crying. herself has been signed off work with stress. she has been thinking hard about how to manage life.

part of the problem is that herself is in charge of earning most of the money. this is not because of the dodgy kidneys. it has always been this way, even before the kidneys got dodgy. from where i sit it looks like a reasonable way to divvy up the stuff. herself is good at earning money, himself is good at cooking and shopping and stuff. the thought of herself being in charge of the cooking and shopping and stuff and himself being in charge of earning money fills me with dread. we would be living in a cowshed with the smoke alarm going off the whole time.

for years and years the arrangement worked well. however, it seems it is no longer working well for herself. she is shaking and crying and not in a good state. she came to the conclusion that she has to cut down her hours at work, given that she has quite a lot to do at home as well.

the only way to cut her hours is to cut how much the peeps spend. at the moment they spend more than they have coming in. they do this by way of little squares of plastic. about once a year herself rings up the money man and gets more money. she does this by way of a magic device called a re-mortgage. the downside of this, which herself has just realised, is that you have to pay the money back. this means that herself has to keep working to earn money.

herself announced that there was going to be a change of plan.

"if i don't stop working so hard i will drop dead!" (this struck me as overly dramatic but she did have a point) "we will have to look at our money!" i am not sure how you look at something that is in fact not there.

herself drew up some spreadsheets. for someone who cannot add up how many fingers she has she is pretty sharp when the chips are down. the spreadsheets made it clear that the peeps will have to a) spend less and b) pay off the mortgage, before herself can cut down how hard she works.

the spending less idea is a novel one. herself can spend money without getting out of bed. in fact when she can't sleep she often sits in bed with the laptop, shopping. but once she is on a mission there is no stopping her. the first thing to go was lavish food shopping. the peeps went to waitrose (which for the benefit of my overseas readers is a place that sells yummy stuff) after parents evening at my boy's school. parents evening is a bit gruelling for the peeps so himself was looking forward to buying a tasty treat.

"don't spend too much!" said herself, "remember our economy drive!"

himself chose a tin of baked beans.

"we've got baked beans in the cupboard," pointed out herself.

"i want these f***ing beans!" shouted himself. several people turned round to look. herself was a little unnerved but had the presence of mind to warn himself that his little outburst would find its way into my blog.

today herself put her energies into sorting out the household bills. she found a deal where you can get your internet, phone and telly all for £26 a month. this will save a lot of dosh. the downside is himself will no longer get his football matches. he decided this was sufficient reason for another tantrum.

"its all i have left!" he wailed, forgetting that he also has computer games and the internet and normal telly and his season ticket to go and watch football, which herself has just bought him at huge expense. and he could of course talk to herself and my boy, although that i fear would be a last resort.

"i can't believe you!" said herself, "you are seriously expecting me to carry on working full time so you can watch bloody football!"

"just because you are miserable there is no need to make the rest of us miserable!" himself retaliated.

at this point herself had, for once, the common sense to retreat before she said something she might regret. i will tell you about the plan to build a house in the front garden to pay off the mortgage another time....