Slight Expectations

Sometimes the worst thing is having one's expectations, be they ever so humble, dashed.  So to be told "I will get home before you and make a tray of tea" fills one with optimism and cheerfulness.  When one returns to find the house dark and apparently empty and an enormous amount of teenage-generated washing up waiting to be done and no sign of tea, or supper cooking (promised by another party) one does tend to feel mildly grumpy...then a teenager appears to cook - you ask him to empty the other half of the dishwasher, he complains that he's cooking now... Eventually the tea maker emerges from the bathroom where he has been (a) looking at an Airfix catalogue (b) editing his book (c) reading the latest English Heritage magazine... and starts to make tea.  Although he has done this several times in the last 20 years it is impossible for it to be achieved without queries "Where's the tea pot?" "Where did you put the milk?" "Can we have those biscuits now?" etc.

I find myself fantasising about the quiet, empty life I could have if I lived alone.  Would I be unhappy? Isolated? Miserable?  Terribly over-talkative whenever I did meet anyone?   Would I be tidier, as I was before?  Would they all eventually learn how to cook?

I don't have enormous expectations really, but when one's very tiniest expectations are unfulfilled, one does wonder sometimes.
 
And now here are Fairport Convention http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVTQ_VkGsjk  "Now be Thankful" is an important corrective to all these pathetic grumbles.