The Weekend - Completed

Chapter 51

Despite going to bed a lot later than I had anticipated when I woke a little after seven I felt refreshed and ready for the very, very long day ahead of me. Even before opening my eyes I ran through my mental to do list

Make the boys breakfast, this had a dual purpose, firstly ensuring none are hung over and in a state, but also making sure they had a lining on their stomachs before they inevitably had a few drinks before the wedding, which wasn't until 3pm.
Have my shower here before I leave, as Katie's mum's house only had one bathroom and with the bride, 2 mothers, and 5 bridesmaids, including 2 toddlers not long out of nappies. So a shower there was out of the question, besides I quite fancied a run this morning, it wasn't often Evie was out the house first thing in the morning so it felt like a shame to waste the opportunity.
Remember to put the new sets of pyjamas I had bought for the girls in the car, as I didn't fancy my chances after a half hour drive of getting them changed out of their bridesmaids dresses when we got home. Bless her Evie was more excited about having Katie's daughter and her best friend Millie sleep over than she was the wedding.
Give James a set of keys, after our heart to heart yesterday I had convinced him to spend the rest of the weekend with us, he needed to relax before heading back home and I needed help keeping whirlwind Evie and hurricane Millie occupied.
Get vintage bottle of champagne out the fridge and take it with me to Katie's so we could toast the bride before the chaos of the day began.
Pick Evie up from Joel's.
Last but not least, I HAD to remember to put my mum's pearl earrings in my bag, I had promised to lend them to Katie, they were to be her something old and something borrowed. She was so highly strung over the wedding if I forgot them she was liable to unravel into a white meringue mess, and nobody wanted to see that.
Happy I hadn't left anything out I finally got out of bed and padded down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"Morning honey" James's cheery voice greeted me as he whipped off the pink marigolds he'd been wearing. This is why James is my most favourite person ever I thought as I looked around the kitchen and saw he'd not only washed the dishes I'd left in the sink, he'd put them away and wiped all the counter tops down, the place gleamed.

"Kettles on if you fancy a cuppa" He offered, I nodded as I sat at the table and smiled to myself as my guest busied himself and fussed over me in my kitchen.

"Did you sleep well?" I enquired as he handed me the mug of tea and joined me at the table.

"Yeah, that bed in my room is so comfy." It was like an unspoken agreement between us that whenever he stayed that was his room, to be perfectly honest as nobody else ever slept over it was always his room. We had often joked about him leaving a couple of set of clothes in there for when he comes to stay.

The house was a wedding present to me from Joel, I had fallen in love with the place the first time Joel had invited me round all those years ago when we were students. It was a perfect family home with a huge park across the road there was never a shortage of things to do and with six bedrooms we had often daydreamed together about how one day this house would be filled with the laughter of our children, obviously that pipedream never materialised.

The house had been in Joel's family since it had been built over one hundred and fifty years ago so when we decided to get divorced I had resigned myself to handing it back over to its rightful owners but Joel wouldn't hear of it, he knew how much I loved the house and insisted it belonged to me, it wasn't part of the settlement. Something else I would be eternally grateful to Joel for.

"Ooh James, whilst I remember" I said pulling myself from my reverie, I went to the pantry and rummaged around for a spare set of keys, then handed them to him.

"Well that's one thing off my list" and I mentally put a large red tick next to it, taking the keys James just looked at me with a slightly muddled expression.