The Accidental Trad Wife

The train was 22 minutes late 

Wake up, kiss at the door, can of Monster. 

I’m meeting my dad for a couple of hours today, so I decided to leave the cleaning till this afternoon. There will be loads of time before my husband gets home. I got up and ready, then got a bus down to the train station. 

It’s a nice journey through the Dorset countryside. Headphones on, listening to my Spotify ‘Daily Mix 1’, which features New Found Glory, The Offspring and Knuckle Puck. The train started 7 minutes late, it was 22 minutes late by the time I met my dad at the station.

Dad 

Spending time with my dad is never an effort or an obligation. He is the person I want to sit with until 3am, drinking gin and listening to music. We talked for three hours, across two pubs, and much wine. We forgot to have lunch. 

It wasn’t always the easiest relationship when I was younger. We didn’t ‘get’ each other. But as two adults, we now do. We’re similar, maybe too similar. We love a glass of wine or two, going to rock gigs, poetry and books and we accept not everyone likes us, and often those who don’t, really don’t. But most people do, we think, or hope? 

We talked about laying rubble, Trad Wife life, cooking and side tracked to goodness knows what else. My dad’s been reading my blog, he’s not surprised by a single thing I’ve written. That’s a really good thing, we’re very honest with each other. When a relationship has been strained in the past, you put a greater value on the time you have. 

We met up with his partner, and they walked me back to the train station. 

Where am I? 

I sat on the train, noise cancelling headphones on, music playing. 

Then I woke up.

I wasn’t still in Dorset, I was in a forest somewhere, I hoped I wasn’t beyond Hampshire. 

I haven’t missed a stop on a train in years, but I was nearly an hour past my stop. I got off the train nonchalantly, and got the next train going back in the opposite direction. 

I wasn’t going to get back home before my husband, the house wouldn’t be warm and welcoming for him to come back to, and dinner wouldn’t be on the table in time. It’s going to be a failure of a Trad Wife day. 

We bickered when I got back, not because of the lack of cooking and cleaning, but because the boiler had lost pressure. What a stupid thing to bicker about. As soon as the boiler got back to 1.4 bar we were back to normal and went out for dinner. It’s the first time we’ve got snippy with each other since we started this experiment. We’re never annoyed at each other for long, and I don’t think I’d want a relationship where you agree all the time, even if what you disagree about is the pressure of the boiler. 

Cuddled in bed

Full of hot dog, burger, jalapeno bites and tater tots we snuggled down together in bed to watch some TV. We gave the first episode of ‘Mitchell and Webb are not helping’ a go, it’s on Channel 4, so my husband was learning Polish on Duolingo in the adverts. It’s not the funniest thing they’ve ever done, but undoubtedly I’ll watch the whole series anyway. 

It’s been another not at all Trad day, but a good day nonetheless. 

The Trad Wife round up:

Miles travelled in the wrong direction: 30
Mitchell and Webb are not helping rating: 3/5
Glasses of wine: 4
Bickering: Essential