78. Eleven weeks.

The more astute among you may have noticed that this post was supposed to go out yesterday. It didn’t. Yesterday was a momentous day in the 23thorns household. Mrs 23thorns has returned from her two-week trip to New Zealand, or The Land of the Long White Sheep, to those who live there.

Few people know that sheep in New Zealand are mechanically stretched in order to increase wool production.

It was great to have her back. But it did mean that yesterday was a little on the busy side. Mrs 23thorns, you see, has some rather antiquated ideas about housekeeping. And it’s best to just go along with them, no matter how silly they seem. Mrs 23thorns was pulled over by customs officials in New Zealand, and hassled about her eyeliner. The next day, they had an earthquake that measured 6.5 on the Richter scale. Coincidence?

And so yesterday morning was spent frantically opening curtains and windows (Mrs 23thorns harbours quaint, Florence-Nightingale-like notions about “light” and “fresh air”. Although, in her defence, this did give all the fruit flies a chance to disperse), making beds for the first time in two weeks (Like many women, Mrs 23thorns simply cannot get her head around the fact that the making of beds was rendered redundant by the invention of the duvet), cleaning off the ring around the bath (she refuses to accept my theory that the ring is made of dried soap, and is actually an aid to good hygiene), picking up dirty clothes (I had laid them all out carefully on the floor to protect our precious children’s delicate little feet from the cold, hard floorboards, but would Mrs 23thorns care about that? No, she would not. She would simply shove all those soft, gentle child-foot-protectors into a basket, to sit there worthlessly while the little angels suffered.) and throwing away all of our stale fruit (I read somewhere that it is good parenting always to have fresh fruit in the house, but I don’t get it. I am constantly having to shout at the little buggers to stop them from eating it, and then it goes stale and the fruit flies move in.) And that, good people, is the longest sentence you will read all day.

Sadly I had to keep the kids locked outside for most of the two weeks in order to stop them from dirtying my child-foot-protectors.

Then it was off to the airport, where I spent a happy couple of hours finding creative ways to answer the relentlessly repeated question “When is Mom going to come through the door?” I was just starting to get into the swing of things when Mom spoiled it all by coming through the door.

After that, I felt it would be polite to chat to Mrs 23thorns about her trip. As one does.

And so, your update is a day late. But here it is. I am, you will be thrilled to hear for the eleventh time, writing 100 posts in 100 days. Or rather, about 100 posts in roughly 100 days. Last week was heavy going. I filled the gap that Mrs 23thorns had temporarily left in our lives by pretending to be a manual labourer. I laid tiles. I did complicated things with cement. I made furniture. I rearranged furniture.

I carried concrete around on my head while wearing a formal shirt.

All of this labour reminded me that I am now middle aged. But it was not my body that let me down in the end. I missed a post on Friday. Because my brain is apparently middle aged too. But I did get some stuff out. I wrote about some fools who should have known better than to make rape-jokes on the internet. I wrote about the redoubtable Marula tree. I wrote about fame and children. And the weirdly James Bond-like assassination attempt on one of South Africa’s most innocent men. And then the wheels came off. I missed a day because of the internet. Then I posted about food. And then I missed a day because I’m scared of Mrs 23thorns. And here we are.

There are fruit flies in my underwear drawer, 23thorns. Why are there fruit flies in my underwear drawer, 23thorns?

Things should settle down a little now. Just twenty or so days to go. No more school holidays, no more trips to the bush, no more overseas jaunts. I look forward to writing without distractions. Here’s today’s vote.