All Alone in the House

All Alone in the House ©

By Michael Casey

Well I’m all alone in the house, apart from Totoro who is asleep upstairs somewhere, maybe under a bed, or on a comfy duvet, or sneaked into a wardrobe, you’ll know all about this yourselves when a cat adopts you. The girls have gone out to the woods for a half term picnic with friends, more like the feeding of the 5000 for 5. And yes as this is England the 1^st day of June, its damp and over-caste, but hopefully they’ll find a try spot somewhere.

All alone in the house is not the same as home alone, I’m far prettier than Mac Mac or whatever his name was/is I’m just here at the computer thinking how my future will be, girl less, when my girls go off to University, and yes I detest the term Uni. One wants to be a doctor, the other has not decided yet, though at 12 there is more than enough time to decide. To be honest the amount of pain I get makes me think I won’t be here when they graduate. I’ve been honest with them about that, why lie, we should enjoy what we have and don’t be surprised. Obviously I want to live till I’m 100 and screw the pension fund into the ground.

At home all alone, means I can get to the bathroom without too many girls in the way, though the cat on occasions will use the bath as a toilet, I think she is just posh. When you have the house to yourself you realise why you got married, to have some noise in the house, form a Christian family if you want a little Peace said Padre Pio. Though for balance you can change to the Faith or none of your choice, some people may even worship toilets, so long as they flush I don’t care.

So by creating noise, you get a little peace, wasn’t that a Euro song long ago, a German girl sang it if I can remember, you can all Google to see if I’m right, remember I’m not a journalist researching before I write, I just write and hope I’m right. You certainly get noise, a baby’s cries and you get smell too, pooh galore until they are potty trained, for us 2 years a bum. Then you save money as you don’t have to buy nappies any more.

Totoro has woken up and  jumped  on my lap, her two bells jingling from her flea collar, she wants a cuddle, before she’ll attack her food bowl, so forgive any typos as I switch to one handed typing. At least Vangelis is not put off as he plays for me, he’s a regular visitor to my house, via his music. I’ve topped up the cat bowl, so forgive me if my words smell a bit cat foody. These little things break up the silence of being alone in the house, just as the tick of our clocks marks and breaks down the silence of Time.

The clock in the other room chimes One, so I’m starting to think of my belly, it’ll be Orange drink from Iceland, 2 litres for 69p on special offer. A bit of silence does help when you are writing stuff though I tend to be zoned in when I’m writing, just background music as I write. Then when I’m finished more music but this time much much louder.

The day seems slow without the sounds of children in the home, even if they are upstairs and all I can hear is muffled sounds and laughter, the house our home is not complete without them. I think I need to put some loud music on to compensate for their absence, growing up in part of a large family leaves its mark on you and that mark is, you hate the sound of silence,  not the album,  but the real thing, and I don’t mean Coca Cola either.