When I Am Old….

… ok well a bit older than I am now as lets face it according to the younger generation your abominably old from your 30’s, I have a list of things I want to do. Not your ordinary list oh no.

Well it all started when my children were small and would be up all night or/and get up with the larks. I was the image of zoombiefied. Someone much wiser and further along the parent path reassured me its all fine in the end and you do get a form of ‘payback’. Oh how I smile now as my children are teenagers, sleepy morning teenagers. I hover every morning, not because it needs it but I need to. I put dishes away with sheer abandonment with no concern for crashes or bangs ( I do live in a small house so a plate in the kitchen cupboard can be heard in every room). All before the even the larks have thought about getting up.

So when the teenagers have all grown and fled the nest I have a little tick off list of things I want to do.

I want to visit them, often. I want to pop in for coffees and then ask if it ok to use the loo on each visit.  I will do one of the following, or maybe all of them each time, depends on how well the memory is serving on that day…..I’ll open every cupboard and try every product. I will leave lids off or put them half on and then turn them upside down. I’ll use 3 toilet rolls where one piece of tissue would suffice. The hand towel will of course be left on the floor, wet. I will check their tap can drip just as annoyingly as mine does and oh yes use all the hot water with the windows firmly shut. I then shall emerge from the steam filled room like Darth Vader enters the room and leave immediately with no backwards glance.

I hope they each invite me to Sunday lunches, roasts preferably. Or any meal that has taken money and a lot of time to prepare. I’ll sulk in my chair on my phone till asked to the table. I will be pleasant and make small talk about the day as I push my vegetables around my plate.  On asking of everything ok I will of course says ‘its fine’ and then let them know all the people I know who can cook better than them and point out the potatoes aren’t exactly how I like them or I prefer my carrots a different way. But its ok the meat is ok and no I don’t know what a knife is for. I will of course help with putting everything away from the huge roast . I will take my plate and fork, no not the knife I didn’t use it, into the kitchen and put it on the side or in the very middle of the dishwasher. I’ll sit for an hour or two on my phone before leaving. I don’t need to thank anyone for my meal or any of that rubbish stuff. Ill just swan off up the garden path.

So what have I forgotton…?