Janet Christie: I’m on a buttock-clenchingly tight schedule

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it,” says Eldest Child. “Someone said that.”“Oh yes, Groucho Marx,” I say. Later Google tells me it was Aristotle.

It’s not that I wouldn’t like to entertain a thought. I’d love to invite it round, flirt a little, have a couple too many glasses of wine, dance slightly too close and get to know it better. But there’s no time for thoughts; I’m on a buttock-clenchingly 
tight schedule.

Youngest is at the cinema with her pal and I’ve an hour to iron the dry washing, wash the dirty stuff and hang it out, bring in the rained-on load and place on radiators, Hoover, wash the dishes and feed a friend’s cat, fish and hamster. Sorry, I’m listing. I hate people who list how much they have to do. Who ever listens? By item three you’ve always stopped and jumped to your own list, haven’t you?

As I slam-dunk the iron onto school breeks Eldest is explaining astral projection, a ninth dimension, how I should allow for the possibility higher beings are about to move us onto the next level of consciousness.

“I know you disagree, but…” he says.

Au contraire. When the spaceships arrive in Edinburgh, I’ll be the first on board. Minus my iron.