Or, what I did with my Saturday
It's mid-February, and on Leamington Spa Parade, a man is struggling with a large box balanced on his shoulders, well-heeled forty-somethings are toting House of Fraser bags, and gaggles of One Direction lookalikes are taking their matching caramel-coloured chinos and blue sweatshirts out for a spin. The skinny jean-clad, long-haired girls are never far behind.
My attempt at 'what I call' a well-deserved lie-in was short-lived this morning, when an enthusiastic husband loomed singingly over me, proferring his pre-warmed Jedi dressing gown. It was difficult to accept this gift and then to ignore the dance he so enthusiastically performed for me. Presumably, much like the peacock, the human male feels the need to make the most of female attention once he has gained it, and will never pass up the opportunity to have his mate staring befuddledly up at him from beneath the bedsheets. And if dancing fails to enthrall her, you can always make her feel needed by demanding sustenance. Nicely.
Thus it was that at 9.23am I reluctantly hauled myself out of bed (and into Star Wars apparel), with sandwich-making added to my ever-expanding list of weekend activities. The list at that stage ran as follows:
> make cookies
> wash up
> do laundry
> change bedding
> make sandwiches (to be couriered to OH's place of work)
> shoes
I'm sure that any sensible domestic-goddess-in-the-making would have told me to do the most time-consuming task first, and arrange the others into convenient slots based on location and duration. Unfortunately, I didn't ask for any advice. Instead, I spent half an hour trying on six different outfits, before coming to the conclusion that the first one was the most flattering and that all the other clothes should be thrown away*.
Two hours later, anyone walking past my house could have observed through the front window yours truly, mixing bowl in hand, watching an incredibly bad Cameron Diaz movie on the laptop while blending cookie mix. The Christmas tree in the corner? Yep, that should have come down six weeks ago. The pile of paperwork on the coffee table? Untouched - I'm too scared I'll put it all in a 'safe place' and forget where it is. The animatronic Westie and tinsel-clad pink pig on the hearth? Don't ask...
At least the laundry and washing up were done. Slowly but surely, with the help of The Phantom of the Opera soundtrack blaring in the background and probably scaring upstairs' new puppy, I was getting something done. I was even beginning to feel slightly smug, as I dropped more chocolate chunks into the cookie mix and fantasised about greeting my returning husband in a 1950s pinny with a plateful of baked goods... until - wait - husband? Sandwiches!
Never has a sandwich been made in such haste. I thanked my mother's rigorous picnic drills as I literally threw the things together, cheese slices as thick as my fingers and an over-generous helping of chocolate biscuits in the lunchbox to compensate for the not-at-its-best bread. Sometimes I wonder how I ever ended up married at all when the food is this bad. Thank God it comes down to more than sandwiches.
My wifely duty complete (tupperware delivered, in the rain), I decided to ditch the remainder of the housework and go out in pursuit of something much closer to my heart - shoes. Now before you begin picturing me as a terrible spendthrift with no domestic skills who ought to be lampooned in an episode of Desperate Housewives, I would like to point out that my entire object was the restoration of existing shoes and not the purchase of new ones. My footwear record this year is remarkably sparse, by my standards - one pair, and no more, has entered into the hallowed realms of New Shoedom since the ball dropped in NYC. I believe in discipline and restraint, where called for. I'm applying it first to my shoe collection and then to my diet, so admittedly my priorities aren't entirely straight, but I'm getting there!
Kenilworth, for all its charms (many of which are hidden), has no Timpson's, so I had no choice but to venture into Leamington. Well, technically I had a choice, but I have to be honest, Coventry at the weekend is far from appealing. Leamington, on the other hand, with its cream-coloured terraces and hide-away stores filled with blown-glass vases and handmade jewellery, makes for a pleasant whiling away of the afternoon.
Which is why 4pm finds me ensconced at the tiniest table in the tiniest alcove of the busiest coffee shop, trying to keep my elbows to myself as people pass with their espressos/lattes/mochas (delete as applicable). My shoes should be no more than half an hour and I'm quite enjoying the people-watching. Small children have been taking it in turns to perch precariously on the edge of the leather sofa by the window, feet dangling several inches from the floor. Expectant mothers have manoeuvred pushchairs over the tiles and between chairs, looking like they might burst whether they get their coffee quickly or not. Several older gentlemen in stylish boots have balanced coffee, cheesecake and newspaper on the way to a solitary table. There are still teenage girls outside wearing shorts despite the cold - perhaps they're afraid that the boys have forgotten what female legs look like over the winter.
I know it's pointless, and possibly to some minds a little weird, but I can't help speculation about the lives of the people I notice. Is this their weekly custom, their 'pet' cafe, their haven on a busy afternoon? Are they enjoying time with friends, or trying to ease the tension of an unexpected visit? Do they feel comfortable with who they are, what they do, what they stand for - and would they know what to do if they weren't?
For all my rambling about shoes and my failure to domesticate to Nigella standards, I do have some other, more serious thoughts in my head. Thoughts like, what measurable progress have I made in my life since I last sat here? Quite by accident, I've ended up in the first cafe I came to several years ago, before my husband was my husband, when my life felt full of great promise and great distress. Time to reflect is a help to me, but it's also a mixed blessing. I recognise elements of myself which are not as improved as I would like them to be, and ambitions which have been sidelined in favour of a more practical approach to life. However, I do know myself a little better now than I did then, and I've had time to form my ambitions into something that will hopefully prove to be more concrete and less accolade-hungry. I also have the love of a good man, and that's a gift I can't quantify by any measure I know. I might be heading toward 24 without a clear career path (or even much of a clue how to find one), but I do it in the knowledge that I'm surrounded by people - family, friends - who'll give me a hand when I trip up. Plus, there'll be extra friend points for the ones with enough self-control not to blame any literal trips on my (fabulous) shoes.
Speaking of which, time to collect the ones that have just been through surgery. I leave my coffee haven to return another afternoon... Radio Three angels, sing me to my not-quite-goddess-like rest!
*Don't worry, nothing actually went in the bin. If anyone's interested in taking on half my wardrobe, however, please do get in touch.
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