Oh Jitterbug (and lots of minutes of my life I'll never get back)

This afternoon, while at a friends house, I got a phone call from Jitterbug.  Wondering what could be so important as to phone me from Dubai, I answered it, expecting maybe to be told he was just about to board his flight home, or his flight was delayed or some other crap-ness.  Sadly, this was not the case.  He asked where we were, and being the curious soul I am, I asked why.

He was home.  A DAY EARLY.  Usually such an event is cause for celebration - the children have been driving me insane and it is very quiet without his constant presence (even when he is not saying anything I can hear him singing songs in his head).  This afternoon, sitting in my friends house while letting my children run wild in her small flat filled with tiny toys with lots of teeny tiny pieces, my heart skipped a beat, and not in the 'Oh my god he's home early YAY!' kind of way.

You see, feeling quite confident he was is Dubai until Friday, I had left the jumper I am knitting for him lying on the kitchen table.  Let me rephrase that for you.  In plain sight, for the world to see (if the world were in my house), was the jumper which I have kept secret since April.  This jumper which has caused me to send friends  hurried messages asking them to remove links to my blog from their blog in the event he should read them.  This jumper which I have panicked over, knit on in secret when I can, an hour here, an hour there.  In my minds-eye, I saw the end of the world (I am nothing if not dramatic).

While feigning delight (and not very well, I am a very bad actress when it comes to stuff like this) my mind was whirring - what are the chances of him seeing it?  How quickly can I get home?  Can I get him to leave the house right this very second?  Luckily, he did the work for me, and offered to come to said friends flat, to which I immediately said 'Yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, come down now, OK?' without even checking with the host (luckily she totally understood why I needed to evict him from our house ASAP).

This afternoon is one of the rare occasions I am actually grateful for my darling husbands ability to not see clutter and mess.  The gods were smiling upon me today, for he did not see it.  He didn't see the pattern that was scattered over the table, or the neatly (thankfully) folded man size jumper on the table, or the ball sof yarn on the floor.  I like to think he was just so excited to be home and wondering where we were he didn't take anything in, but I know deep down this isn't true.  He just doesn't notice anything.

Jitterbug and his new hat

Today was a good day (well, the last 3 hours of the children being awake was a good day, the whole 7 hours prior to that was hell).  He brought me an amazingly crap souvenir, he came home a day early, and he didn't find out about his Christmas present.

And the minutes I'll never get back?  One word.  Arbitration.  I now have a very good idea of what goes on in an arbitration and what preparing for one involves, and I am not a lawyer, nor have much interest in law (or rather the very specific workings of law or contracts other than the ones that involve me.)  I am very lucky to have a husband who loves his work so much, but my god I have lost a lot of minutes while doing the dutiful wife thing.