There are times when I conclude that I must be invisible. I mean, I’m physically here, obviously – far too much of me, in places – but the effect of my presence is so insignificant I may as well not be. This morning I spent ten minutes trying to make the dog stay in her bed, only to be met with various canine expressions ranging from bored indifference to downright dismissal. Just as I gave up, I heard the creak of a floor board as my husband came down the stairs. The dog froze, listened, then shot into her basket as though it were lined with gravy bones.
The children are even worse. They have a specially adapted hearing system which kicks in only on the third utterance of a request from their mother.
‘Pyjamas on, please.’
Nothing.
‘Go and put your pyjamas on, please.’
Occasionally, at this point, I find myself adding ‘don’t make me tell you again,’ a toothless threat which carries with it a sense of inevitable failure.
Still no response from the children, who carry on watching television / reading / hitting each other with my new John Lewis cushions.
‘GO AND PUT YOUR PYJAMAS ON THIS MINUTE!’
Three shocked faces look up at me, Georgie’s bottom lip quivering gently as she hovers on the brink of tears.
‘There’s no need to shout at the kids, honey,’ my husband says mildly, looking up from the paper.
‘But I asked them three times!’ I say.
‘Did you?’ he asks. ‘I didn’t hear you.’