Kitchen chaos

Melissa: “Martin, what time will you be home?”

Me: “I don’t know… about half six. Why?”

Melissa: “Harry is emptying the spice rack into a saucepan. There’s Chinese five spice everywhere. Oh dear, now he’s got a whisk and icing sugar. Harry stop that now. Are you sure you can’t be home any earlier?”

Me: “Erm I’ll try to leave as soon as possible, but it won’t much before half six. What do you mean there’s five spice everywhere. What’s going on?”

Melissa: “Just hurry up.” Phone line goes dead.

This is the conversation I had with Melissa earlier this week while sitting on the Leader’s newsdesk surrounded by bemused colleagues. To be honest, I was a bit bemused too – and a little bit worried about what I might find when I got home.

As it turns out, by the time I got home order had been restored and Melissa had somehow managed to clean the kitchen. It turns out that as a reward for being such a good boy, Melissa had promised to help Harry bake a cake.

Unfortunately, I had done the shopping last weekend and had forgotten to buy eggs so the cake-making was off the agenda. Harry – who certainly fancies himself as a cook – was not to be deterred. He had emptied whatever he could get his hands on into a saucepan and proceeded to whisk away in a cloud of icing sugar and spices.

Melissa looked worn out – the episode had obviously been stressful. All things considered, I was grateful to have been in work. It reinforces my view that going to work is the easy end of the deal; looking after a two-and-a-half-year-old trumps being a journalist every time.