Scenes from a marriage

It must have been one of our better spells. Although still young (me in my 20s, him maybe 30) we had already endured more than our fair share of ill-health and tragedy but that's not what this is about, though in a way it's not entirely irrelevant as we weren't used to being `settled' and this was a new experience for us. A small but nice house in a small but nice Sussex village with our small and sometimes nice family - two daughters, one a baby and the other seven-ish. Oh, and a cat, although sadly the cat didn't last long due to elder daughter's allergies.....but I digress.

Family life for us didn't include DIY (another allergy problem, this time involving hubby). Even changing a plug would turn him red with apoplexy and the air blue with cussing and swearing.

However, for some reason (and here my memory shuts down) he decided to design and make a bookcase as we had nowhere to put our books and perhaps he was trying to prove a point, show off to our friends - who knows. Anyway he laboured over a long, stressful weekend with me and the kids keeping a suitable distance and just wishing we'd gone to Habitat in Brighton and bought one. However, at last it was finished and proudly positioned in our open-plan living room at the foot of the stairs. Books arranged (classics in pride of place of course - he was a bit of a snob like that). Big sigh of relief.

By now he had taken up a new hobby (nothing to do with woodwork or books) and joined the local badminton club. True he was sporty, but also had a roving eye, and it was already becoming clear the young women with long hair and short skirts were as much an attraction as the the game itself. As his obsession grew, I decided to follow the old adage `if you can't beat `em, join `em', so under sufferance initially, I did just that. Up until then I was quite happy playing tennis on the village green courts once a week with other young mums - babies propped courtside in prams, stuffed with rusks to keep them quiet, whilst we shrieked and giggled and gossiped the morning away, occasionally hitting a ball or two when the mood took us.

I had realised I wasn't bad at tennis though, and despite struggling with the shuttlecock thing at first, I became quite good at badminton too (I don't think he was expecting that, being the competetive animal that he was). Anyway what has all this got to do with the bookcase, you may or may not ask. Well, I'll tell you anyway..

One evening we were both off to the club - an important doubles match on the agenda - babysitter booked, me resplendent in short skirt and new plimsolls (yes I could be competetive too) carrying baby downstairs to prepare bottle before going out when I missed my footing (blame the cheap plimsolls) and hurtled down the full length of the staircase. My maternal instinct meant that I held fast to my child and only when I hit the bottom did I let go and she rolled away unharmed. As for me, I went crashing into the brand-new master-crafted bookcase. I felt a sharp pain in my knee and the wetness of blood. Husband rushed across the room to rescue - yes you've guessed it - neither the child nor the wife but the bookcase of course. `You've broken it!' he yelled over my crumpled body, as I struggled to get to the baby.

To cut a longer story shorter, baby fine, wife with damaged knee, bookcase less damaged but far more serious in the greater scheme of things. Babysitter arrives to scene of domestic chaos, settles the baby, applies disinfectant and elastoplast to my knee by which time husband has decided he needs to take his mind off the bookcase and, regardless of my injury, the badminton evening must go ahead as planned. As with many minor injuries I only really felt it the next day and wondered how on earth I had managed to play through the pain - nevertheless in a weird kind of way, justice was done as my partner and I thrashed hubby and his partner (one of the very young, extra-short-skirted, extra-long-haired, younger female members).

I vaguely remember he spent ages glueing the broken part of the bookcase back together, although he frequently obsessed about the fact that the damage was still obvious and it wobbled quite badly after that. To be honest I think it wobbled before, but he was having none of it. Fortunately however, that was the end of his attempts at DIY so life was a little more peaceful for a while. That is, until..... no best not go there, it would take too long and it's even more boring than the bookcase saga.

I've heard he's not much good with computers so hopefully he won't be reading this. Not that it matters, it's a relief to be able to tell someone about it to be honest, but just to be on the safe side, I must add that he did have his good points. Well, a few. I'm just trying to remember what they were. After all, it was a long time ago and he's someone else's problem now.