The Landlady longs for privacy at Landlady Towers

Much as I love my older children, I often wish they would leave home.
I never imagined when they were under 12, that the same friends they had then would still be coming round for tea when they were in their 20s. Not that I have to cook it for them anymore, mind. Furthermore, as they’ve got older, they’ve collected even more friends, who turn up unannounced all the time and stymie the new life I am trying to forge for myself.

I am only being all huffy because, although I am supposed to have given up men for the year, someone recently crept beneath my defences, yet again illuminating the fact that I cannot have a normal love life. For various complicated reasons – such is the motorway pile-up that is my love life – we are not seeing each other anymore. Although I was a tiny bit upset at the time, this is definitely a good thing as said man just happened to be a Doorman at one of the clubs The Big Son and Big Daughter attend on a regular basis. Actually, they don’t attend said venue on a regular basis any longer, because they claim it’s ‘too young and chavvy’ for them. Suffice to say that I happened to be in there for purely ‘investigational purposes’, and was sublimely unaware of any young and chavvy activity on the occasion when I met said doorman.

A few weeks into the relationship, I realised that we were sneaking around like teenagers in order to avoid the older children who may have recognised him from the club, then put two and two together and realised that I had been going there. Oh, the shame…Worse still, he’s probably even thrown them – or definitely some of their friends – out of there on various occasions.

“I could not even cook a romantic meal for a new partner”

I am sure you have all cooked a romantic meal for a new partner on occasion, I could not even do that for any potential new man, because even when The Small Daughter is at her dad’s, I will have the problem of The Big Daughter sitting in the corner of the living-room like a giant, vicious spider, or The Big Son rushing through the kitchen – which to be fair is next to his bedroom – eyeing us suspiciously and leaving vapour-trails of Paco Rabanne for us to choke on…

I have to say though, The Big Daughter takes it all with a pinch of salt and refers to various ex-Boyfriends as ‘Dad Number 3’ or Dad Number 5’, etc and took tremendous pleasure in saying it to their faces at my party recently. Luckily, they seemed to take it in the spirit it was intended. All 16 of them…