Foul Mood

Since returning Louise has done little else but mope around my flat, drinking cold coffee and crying. For the first few days of her stay I offered tea, sympathy and a generous supply of chocolate and gossip magazines but I'm becoming tired of coming home every day to her sullen face and foul mood. It's like she is a teenager again but without the slamming of doors and my ex wife going through 'the change'. Whoever timed my daughter's teenage years to co-incide with my ex's menopause needs to be struck off the creation register. Surely nothing can be more testing than living with two women at their least rational time of life. For two or three years my life lurched from crisis to drama, I returned every night from work to a houseful of hormones, a sink of unwashed pots and broken crockery. At one point I thought they were holding Greek plate smashing parties in my absence, only to be reminded of the force of their wrath one particularly turbulent Sunday dinner. With hindsight I think my Ex was secretly jealous of Louise's emerging beauty and the number of possible suitors clamouring for her attention. Thankfully I fell into hospital radio around this time so could escape once or twice a week to the safe environment of the studio. I know I should be more sympathetic to Louise's predicament. I can imagine it is hard splitting from someone you adore but there is little I can say, other than ask her to tidy up and water the plants. Perhaps that's what she needs, maybe she needs me to be the strict authoritarian dad. I always let the Ex do the discipline but perhaps I should call on my inner Super-nanny and get her to tow the line, well at least help out a little bit. She could at least wash up.