Valentine Love

Saturday, February 14 ‘09

The little twin Bennets were sitting at Mrs Bennet’s feet contentedly feeding each other Cheerios. Miss Rosie, the elder and more confident sister was pushing the tiny hoops into Kezia’s mouth. They both were grinning. Occasionally they lent forward, touching noses and giggled. As they did so Rosie pinched a few more cereal snacks from Kezia’s bowl and fed her twin again. They were biding their time. They did not want to go to bed.
This was Valentine’s weekend and Mr and Mrs Bennet were staying in a four star hotel. It was just as well it wasn’t a romantic break because the room they had been given had two single beds which had no intention of becoming a couple. They were firmly attached to the wall and no amount of reconciliation was going to unit them. The fact there were two travel cots in the room was a double insurance of uninterrupted passion.
It was a church leader’s conference and as there were crèche facilities for the under two’s during the day sessions, Mrs Bennet decided she would join her husband. Finding childcare for three daughters was slightly easier than five. She was used to handling the needs of five little people at once. But most of her friends and indeed family, were not, apart from Mr and Mrs Bennet Senior who had brought up five children of their own, albeit of the male species. They were now having a taste of the female variety. Hopefully it wasn’t too much of a shock.
The little twin Bennets were relishing having their parents to themselves – happily running down corridors, invariably in different directions and wooing both hotel guest and staff alike with their cheeky and mischievous grins. As the conference didn’t provide childcare in the evening, Mrs Bennet stayed back with her daughters. Sleeping – certainly in strange cots and in a strange room – was clearly not on their agenda, even it was on Mrs Bennet’s. One of her friends had instructed her: “Get some rest!” But his children were 21 and 17. Hers were 21 months and rest wasn’t yet part of their vocabulary. So for the next four hours Mrs Bennet did her best to entertain them. Although they did quite a lot of that themselves by doing a pretty good impression of the Andrex puppy, pulling toilet paper and running with it, stretching it as far as they could from the disabled bathroom the Bennets had been allocated, to the bedroom. Thankfully the twins didn’t think to pull the red emergency cords which dangled from both rooms. Mrs Bennet thought about it though. As both girls spent two hours crying and protesting about bedtime, she did debate calling for help. In the end, she turned the lights down and shut herself in the bathroom so she could sit on the toilet seat and read a chick lit novel until the sounds of her angry daughters dissipated to more of a whimper.
This was Valentine’s Day and her evening was spent cooped up in a bathroom. It would have been easier if she had a bath to soak in. But a hole in the floor didn’t quite do the trick on the relaxation front. To keep her spirits up, she rang her older three girls from her bathroom throne, who were only too delighted to tell her about their adventure that afternoon. Granddad’s car had broken down and they had had to be rescued in a tow truck. Just hearing their cheerful voices was a great compensation for the grumpy ones filtering through the bathroom door. Half an hour later, the cries from the cots were still strong. A further call was needed. Mrs Bennet rang her mum, affectionately known as Jannie, who made her laugh. Away for the weekend with Mrs Bennet’s dad, Jannie answered her mobile phone rang while she was in her hotel bathroom in Torquay - also sitting on the throne. That alone made Mrs Bennet giggle. Loo to loo, their chat was almost surreal but enough to maintain Mrs Bennet’s sanity. Although she knew she was in for a long night.
She was right. Having forgotten any spare socks for the twins, Mrs Bennet tried washing and drying the ones they’d been wearing. Having rinsed them with soap in the sink, Mrs Bennet realised her only drying option was the room’s hairdryer. In trying to quietly unplug it so she could do her laundry in her throne room, Mrs Bennet pressed the on switch, and promptly woke one sleeping baby and upset the one who was almost asleep. She was back to square one. Mr Bennet returned to find three unhappy ladies in his room – one jumping up and down in her cot, the other trying to escape from hers and the other knelt on the floor trying to dry four baby socks with a hairdryer. He sent his wife out for a much needed drink at the bar, calmed both babies and dried the socks in the trouser press. Mrs Bennet decided a man’s “fix it” qualities were sometimes just what a woman needed.