My weekend from hell with solo parenting and a sick child

Mrs Canavan went away for the weekend. It's been a bit of a theme lately. Last month she flew to Rome to run a marathon, this month she announced she was off to Birmingham to see university friends.

- Steve Canavan

Mrs Canavan partied while I cleaned up sick. Photo: Adobe

(Adobe)

"Which friends," I enquired.

'Aw you know,' she said, slightly vaguely, 'the usual crowd. There's, erm, well, a few of us.'

If I had the resources I'd have hired a private investigator and had her tailed to see if she was meeting with a hunky fella called something cool like Taylor or Marco and having a passionate affair (I've long since hoped this might be the case, so we can get divorced and finally stop having a weekly row about whose turn it is to put the recycling bin out).

Anyway, Mrs Canavan toddled off-packing in her suitcase, I couldn't help but notice, her most expensive perfume and her raciest underwear (by raciest I mean the one pair she owns that isn't a kind of grey/off-white colour and marked on the gusset).

It meant I was left with the children and, as always, I enjoyed this, or at least for a one and a half hours until I started getting a bit bored of them and wanted a break.

The kids - Mary and Wilf - are eight and six now, so growing up, and therefore staying up later.

A month or so ago Wilf, the six-year-old, went to bed at 7.30pm on the dot and then I serenaded him with a few tunes (his favourite, for reasons I'm not quite sure of, is Streets of Loredo, possibly because it's about a dying cowboy who's been shot and is bleeding heavily from the chest... what more could a young child want to dwell on as they nod off?)