The weekend

What a weekend. Chief Spending Officer is trying to understand the concept of economies, as he tells me we can expect ‘cash flow issues’. Not entirely sure what he means by this, but nodded wisely all the same.

Saturday began with CSO talking to the builders who are working on his study. Apparently the ‘design concept’ he’s been working to is now ‘inappropriate’ to his ‘current economic situation’. Kazimir and Jan seemed to be listening carefully as he explained, but I don’t think the message got through. As soon as he’d gone they carried on with fitting the oak panelling. I don’t really blame them – our initial are already carved into them, so it’s not like we can send them back. I did try to explain this to the CSO, but he just stared at me again. And we have already ordered the carpet from those delightful Iranians, so we simply can’t cancel it. When I point out to the CSO that, considering the price we’ve paid for the carpet, cancelling it would cause an international incident, he whimpered again.

CSO’s single malt collection is taking a knock. He’s not even bothering to use the decanters at all, which sets a terrible example to the children. Diva-in-waiting was a little off about her Himalayan glacial water this morning, despite it being in her usual Dale Chihuly cylinder.

‘Daddy says we have to save money,’ she said. ‘What does that mean?’

Sometimes as a parent there are things you can’t easily explain.

Sunday morning found CSO passed out on one of the sofas again. I left a note for him explaining I was off for my massage and waxing. He knows those funds are, as I have pointed out already, ring-fenced. When I reached the studio the staff were a little bit anxious about funding. It seems to be catching, or at least a sign of the times. They’d read that I was having to be austere in my spending, and were a little concerned because they’d already put in the order for my spermaceti wax with Mr Yamamoto. I told them in no uncertain terms that waxing money was ring-fenced, and that CSO knew this. And so, another international incident was averted.

Returned home, freshly waxed and smelling of hand-crushed orange blossom petals (they fly them in just for me, they tell me), to find CSO looking through his wardrobe.

‘How can I find a new job if I haven’t got a decent suit to wear?’ he asked me. I pointed out he has plenty of suits to wear. Again, the look.

‘Those are old suits,’ he says, storming out of the room. ‘Someone might recognise one and then where would I be?’

Chatting to someone with an eye for detail and a good suit, I suggested, but then felt a little unfair. I hate to be seen in the same outfit more than once, so perhaps CSO is getting closer to me.

CSO is now hitting the vodka: cries of ‘Nastravya!’ or similar can be heard all over the house. He did try explaining to the little man with a big attitude why pre-Revolution vodka tastes so much better than anything made today, but was just a little beyond making sense when he did.

‘A new job, or bust!’ he shouts up the stairs before collapsing. I’m quite happy with my bust as it is, I resolve to tell him when he wakes up.