And God Created the Au Pair. Pascale Smets

into spare bed with me. so Dan could get some sleep. Spare-room bed had been made up in anticipation of L & W’s arrival. This morning, however, both me & the bed comprehensively smeared with dried-on yellow snot. So idiotic of me not to get bogey-free Dan to sleep there, tried to deal with it with baby wipes but to no avail. Dan helpfully suggested simply turning everything over but as Lou is always doing stuff like airing her bed don’t dare risk it.

      

      From: Nell Fenton

      To: Charlotte Bailey

      

      Though I consider baby wipes one of the finest creations of the human brain and have found more applications for them than I can count, don’t think you can actually launder bedding with them. I’m tired all the time at the moment too as have been defeated in all my attempts to get Ollie to stay in his own bed. By simply screaming till he’s sick he can get exactly what he wants, which is to sleep in our bed where he behaves like a washing machine on its final spin. Michael always crawls off to the spare room, but since he’s quite frequently joined there by Rob, who, when scared, likes to sleep clamped against your body for security reasons and who, as soon as he’s asleep, becomes a sort of kung-fu fighter, can’t be too critical of this defection from the marital bed.

      

      From: Charlotte Bailey

      To: Nell Fenton

      

      Walt & Lou arrived tonight night looking v glam & sunglassesy (so wish I was the sort of person who could carry off sunglasses in the winter, last time I tried Fran asked me if I had conjunctivitis again). Lou has got v skinny since last time I saw her, says she’s addicted to bikram yoga and it’s awesome for mind and body. Walt not interested so he looks the same. Really lovely to see them & both on v good form with lots of funny stories about NY etc. Children asleep when they arrived so am looking forward to the morning as know they will be overjoyed. Ellie has already checked with me about 1000 times that Lou is actually coming & actually bringing presents. Told her not to be so grabby (v hypocritical as was secretly quite excited myself).

      

      From: Charlotte Bailey

      To: Nell Fenton

      

      Lou & Walt visit going v well so far although slightly sticky start this morning when Hugh hugged the back of Walt’s legs before I’d wiped his nose. Managed to get everything off with baby wipes. Lou gave me a beautiful pair of chocolate calfskin gloves & the children a lovely book each, which they received v graciously (thank God as can be ghastly ungrateful little toerags about books & say things like ‘Where’s my real present?’). Obviously they didn’t SAY anything but think L & W bit shocked by state of the house in cold light of day. Think they imagined if not finished at least we’d be at the decorating stage. Also clearly cannot comprehend why anyone would choose to move out of central London to a place without a Starbucks let alone a tube station. Difficult to explain to someone without children the utter tedium of constantly having to cart them to local playground as tiny paved Islington garden a death trap. Anyway have to get off computer now to prepare delicious dairy-free dinner.

      

      From: Nell Fenton

      To: Charlotte Bailey

      

      So is it no dairy now, as well as no red meat or wheat? Yum.

      

      From: Rachel Lockwood

      To: Nell Fenton

      

      Dear Nell

      

      How are you all? I’ve had so many compliments on the lovely sweater you sent me and today the man in the queue behind me at the supermarket started chatting to me and then asked me if I’d like to go out for a drink, which I attribute entirely to my new sweater. Admittedly he was no Adonis but it’s such a very rare thing these days I was still a bit flattered.

      

      Mum and Dad came to stay last weekend, they’re both really well and send you their love. It was so nice to have them and Jack was very charming which was a relief since he complained endlessly about them coming before-hand. Mind you, he wasn’t around much which was fine except we were all invited to our neighbours’ for bonfire night and though he promised to be back in time he didn’t turn up till halfway through the evening because he’d run into an old friend and obviously that was more important than keeping his commitments to us. I could see everyone, especially Dad, thought it was spectacularly rude but we all pretended it was the most normal thing in the world. I had to hide the fact that I wanted to jab him repeatedly with barbecue skewers because it would worry Mum and Dad (and be bad form at someone else’s party). Anyhow I still had a nice weekend in spite of being married to bastard-head.

      

      Fondest love to all

      Rachel xx

      

      From: Nell Fenton

      To: Rachel Lockwood

      

      Dear Rachel, perfectly natural to want to jab one’s husband with a skewer sometimes and arriving late better than not coming at all. I’m so glad your parents are well, please send them my love when you speak to them next. All well here though Rob struggling a bit at school, doesn’t really seem to notice it, told me yesterday he was the best reader in his class which sadly I think is the opposite of the truth but at least it shows there’s no problem with his self-esteem. Love Nell

      

      From: Charlotte Bailey

      To: Nell Fenton

      

      Lou & Walt had v bad night last night. Unfortunately it was extremely windy & they found it hard to sleep as stupid bloody cling film I put up at the window kept ‘sucking in & then blowing out’ making ‘a loud whooshing sound’ (which made Walt ‘edgy’). Lou calmed him with a homeopathic remedy & then apparently they both managed to fall asleep BUT NOT FOR LONG because a particularly strong gust of wind caused a corner of fucking plastic sheeting on one of the windows to come loose & start flapping around so then sucking & rustling noise from other 2 windows was accompanied by whipping sound. Both tried to stick flapping corner back down but it kept bursting loose again and then a corner of the plastic whipped Walt’s eye. Injury drawn to my attention by the fact that Walt came down with (v lovely) blue & black scarf tied diagonally across his head over hurt eye. Both he & Lou looked quite rough this morning. Have removed cling film from other 2 windows but the temperature in the room has plummeted & although heating is really cranked up & rest of the house v warm their room remains vv chilly also think Walt may have caught Hugh’s cold, either that or has had v bad reaction to the Camembert he ate last night.

      

      From: Nell Fenton

      To: Charlotte Bailey

      

      V sorry to hear about Walt’s eye. Can be terribly dangerous tussling with cling film, also I believe that careful analysis of Camembert might reveal that it does in fact contain dairy products which I thought they didn’t eat? Heard from Rachel yesterday, sounds like Jack still being a big wanker.

      

      From: Charlotte Bailey

      To: Nell Fenton

      

      Actually bought the Camembert for us, didn’t expect Lou or Walt to have any, but everyone a bit drunk & Walt decided in moment of recklessness to eat some. Anna rang this evening & said they went to a Guy Fawkes party in the village where everybody was supposed to bring fireworks only they couldn’t because Toulouse-Lautrec got to them & bit all the rockets & ate half the mega Catherine wheel she’d bought. Luckily he threw it up in the car on the way to the vet so they were able to go to the party after all, albeit empty-handed.

      

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