Cheese!

It's been a busy month. I kept starting blog posts, but tasks such as having to work through piles of editing, reviewing manuscripts, and the making of giant cheeses (more on that later) and rats masks kept getting in the way... as well as the important task of supporting the daughter through a month of GCSE exams, and helping the son learn his lines for the school play.

As it turned out, the easiest tasks turned out to be the last two, whilst the most difficult was the manufacturing of fifty four rat masks for the P6 production - who would have thought that making and attaching cardboard and paperclip nose bridges to a bunch of EVA masks could be so time consuming? 

The most satisfying task, however, was the making of the cheese.

"WHAT?" I hear you gasp. "Making a giant cheese was more satisfying than helping the offspring?!"

Um, yes. 

In all fairness, this was mainly due to the fact that the offspring were pretty organised with their exam/school play prep, and apart from needing hugs, regular meals and the occasional chunk of chocolate, were fairly self sufficient. I had to keep telling myself that this was a good thing, and that it was all thanks to the years of selfless nagging that I'd done in the past, but it did make me feel slightly redundant.

The cheese, however, was completely helpless. It couldn't do a thing for itself. 

It was completely dependent on me from the moment I described the size of the wedge I needed to the man in the polystyrene shop, to the minute I finished painting 3D 'holes' onto its dayglo yellow surface. I'll let you in on a little secret - it was nice to feel so needed, and it was scary how proud I was to have 'given birth' to it.

When it made its appearance later that week in the school play, I felt a surge of pride which was almost, but not quite, as big as the one that hit me when the son strode out on the stage as the evil Mayor of Hamelin. 

I must say though, that the son's sense of comic timing and his singing was a lot better than that of the cheese, which was rather stiff, and inaudible to boot.

It's lucky, then, that it was the son, rather than the cheese, who had to deliver the valedictorian speech at graduation a little later on...

The day after my son and cheese's triumphant stage debut felt like a huge anticlimax. The school had closed with very little notice after the performance and the graduation,  (the two events having been hastily brought forward due to the government closure of all kindergartens and primary schools to stop the spread of swine flu), and after weeks of frantic activity, we suddenly had nothing to do. The daughter was grumpy, as she still had two exams left, the son was bored, and I felt exhausted.

Things have improved a bit in the last few days - the son has lots of exciting things planned, and the daughter having finished her exams, is much happier and is officially on holiday. 

She's out celebrating the end of term tonight, by going to the late show of a movie with her friends, so I'm in the novel position of waiting up for her.

Instead of pacing, I've been filling my time by blogging, but I've been watching the clock, too. The husband is away in New York and the son is in bed so it's quiet in the flat. I only have the cheese to keep me company... and, as I said before, it's not much of a conversationalist.

I'm starting to feel a bit of the old 'empty nester syndrome' again.

Perhaps I would feel better if I were to create another giant polystyrene foodstuff? 

Let's see... I've made a giant peach (the son, who is called James, wanted to go to a Book Parade one year as 'James and the Giant Peach', so...) and a giant cheese.... 

What next? 

A gigantic char siu bao? (I wouldn't even have to paint the polystyrene!), a watermelon?? A pork pie?

Any insipration and ideas will be gratefully accepted!