sweet effay

I surfaced this morning to discover Mrs effay being hideously and ingratiatingly cheerful and my suspicions were immediately aroused. It didn't take long for me to winkle out the reason: She had been looking at tents and decided to buy one. I pointed out that we have a hellishly expensive tent in the loft, which she purchased nine years ago and we have only used once, but was summarily informed that it had become unsuitable with arrival of the Little effay. This took me aback somewhat as there are three of us and the tent in question sleeps four comfortably and six at a push. Apparently though, the geometry is wrong as our daughter would be in a separate compartment from us. I pointed out that she was welcome to share a compartment with Little effay whilst I shacked up with the dog, but this cut no ice.

I then suggested a trial run with the old tent before we invested in a new one, but was informed that this would not be necessary as we would definitely be going on holiday next year and also heading off into The Great Outdoors on many a weekend. This would mean we would definitely get our money's worth out of the new tent.

This went back and forth until I suddenly remembered something else you can use a tent for: "Of course, it would mean that we could go to festivals again." The sparkle left her eyes immediately. She rallied marvelously by claiming that we couldn't take the child, but I pointed out that the sort of festivals I had in mind didn't have a problem with children. The full horror of her predicament now hit her: If we do buy a tent, she'll have no excuse not to go to at least one festival out of the multitude I will suggest, because otherwise I'll be proved correct in my claim that it won't get used enough. Such are the pitfalls of domestic politics in our house.

I may have slightly overplayed my hand by suggesting that we nip out and buy a tent immediately on the understanding that we head down to Glastonbury for the Gong family gathering this weekend ("We can't take Little effay camping at this time of year!"
"True, but we should really test the new tent without her initially. I'm sure your mother would have her."). Nevertheless, I'm quite looking forward to summer.