Critical Mess

Yesterday, Stella and Iwent out. As in, Left the Apartment.

I know I have laboured the point before, but too much home-making does my head in. And too little does the Engineer’s head in. So over the last quarter-century of our lives together, we have worked out an approach to housework we call the Critical Mass Strategy. As in, when we feel the house is clean enough, we stop and concentrate on distractions like books and Cabernet.

Of course, the word “enough” is operative. Our “enough” is lower than many others’  “enough”. My sister-in-law Sylvie, for example, swears by thin latex gloves so she can “feel the dirt” better than she would in rubber gloves. Last week we spoke on the telephone. “You poor thing,” she commiserated. “Having to wash all your dishes again before putting them away in your new cupboards in Belgium. Moving house is such a lot of work.”

Being a guilt-ridden coward, I agreed fervently with Sylvie that rewashing clean dishes was a royal pain.

But I digress. We have reached Critical Mass in our house in two ways.

1. We can now walk across the living and dining rooms without killing ourselves over boxes or power tools. We can make dinner by reaching for knives, graters and parers in their respective drawers. Okay, the movers buggered up my beautifully catalogued books by leaving boxes unmarked; the Engineer crammed them onto bookshelves willy-nilly and now How to be a Domestic Goddess is wedged next to We Have to Talk About Kevin. Which is perhaps just as well.

And, okay, our clothes are a mess. Jumpers and t-shirts jostle for space, trousers need ironing, the Engineer’s four shearling (four!) jackets have yet to find a spot. But I think it’s okay to reach for the corkscrew now.

2. Stella’s own critical mass was reached at precisely the same moment.   In the last week, Stella has been a model child, listening to audiobooks, drawing,  and applying sock-bandages to Teddy while the Engineer and I have burrowed in cupboards. But yesterday, she cracked.

“I’m lonely,” she wailed. ” Nobody can come for a playdate and I miss Deirdre and Emma and Megan and Teresa and…”

My heart did a kerflump. My child had been forcibly wrested from her best friends, and had no father. Whilst all her classmates were being stimulated in museums and doted on by attentive parents wielding spelling books, my daughter had no father and was deskilling on a diet of chocolate croissants and iPhone games. Plus, she had no father.

I called The Engineer at the office and howled on the phone. Luckily she wasn’t in a meeting. After 10 minutes of one-sided verbal extrudings, The Engineer suggested I take Stella to see a small bronze boy holding his willy aloft and peeing at bemused tourists. We hoped this would help change Stella’s perspective on life.

And so we went on the quest for Mannekin Pis.

Consider this: the bronze statue was cast in 1619 and is tiny.  All of 61 cm (24 inches) and nobody knows who or what it represents exactly. Half a dozen different stories exist about the boy who peed on a war, the most popular one being about a two-year-old duke hung aloft in a basket as a mascot. He promptly anointed the enemy with his piddle and they got nailed in battle.

Mannekin Pis occupies an obscure corner far from Brussels’ central square, Grand Place. For a great city’s mascot, he is underwhelming. Stella regarded his front bottom politely for a moment then asked, “Can we go to the Museum of Chocolate now please Mummy?”.

Which proved much more successful.  Belgium is the font of world’s most famous chocolate brands: Godiva, Côte d’Or, Leonidas, Callebout, etc.  The Belgians eat the second largest quantity* of chocolate, 12 kg a year per head.

Walking past lace shops, we stopped at a café for Stella’s first Croque Monsieur a toasted cheese and ham sandwich she very much enjoyed. We had stopped and asked for directions at least a dozen times to get to this point in the afternoon. Everyone had fallen over themselves to attempt English and give us help. I had always know Belgians as warm people, but it still surprised me to find the quite capital so friendly.

I think I’m going to like living here, Mummy,”  Stella says, spraying Leerdammer over my beaming face.

* Only the Swiss eat more.

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