A Quiet Week at Home

It's been an awful week, this week. A collection of random disasters hit the Asperger home and made my week busy and my life hell.

It all started last week, when I finally plucked up the courage to look in the mirror. Sure enough, that halo of grey roots was becoming increasingly noticeable, even without my glasses. Grey roots and auburn hair just don't mix. I waited a week before I corrected the issue, simply because I lacked the time last week.

You can buy a bottle of hair dye for a few quid, pour it on your head, rub it in, wait thirty minutes, rinse off and admire a beautiful head of hair, then go off and live your life. It's that easy; too easy for a woman like me, who seems to live on complications and difficulties. I decided years ago, to just go grey. Unfortunately, Nina wouldn't let me. That was when the trouble started.

I buy auburn henna in a block, which has to be ground down, mixed with water, applied to my head, then left for hours and hours and hours as it slowly drips down my neck, staining my dressing gown. Somehow, I believe that the resultant colour, similar to Robertson's Golden Shred, looks natural and attractive. Deep down, I know it does neither.

But back to Monday morning. I had carefully arranged to spend the entire morning at home, behind closed doors, dying my hair. I could tidy up the house, which was beginning to look like a scrap heap, with piles of newspapers, clothes and sweet wrappers liberally scattered around. This was going to be a day when I cleared my to-do-list and everyone gasped at my organisational skills.

I woke up early, knocked on Pip's door to wake him, slipped downstairs, made a pile of sandwiches for all of the children, then got the henna and the electric food mill out. But the henna was too hard and the food mill broke. I picked out the largest lumps of white plastic, poured warm water into the powder, then waited for Pip to get up, eat his breakfast, then trot off to school. The taxi was due before I realised he had fallen back to sleep. I ran back upstairs and told him to hurry. By the time he finally walked downstairs, the taxi was waiting and the henna was cold.

Everything was ready and prepared before Alex and Nina came downstairs. I started applying the henna to my head but big, fat lumps of it fell onto the kitchen table and the surrounding floor. A particularly large and glutenous clump fell down my cleavage reminding me that I was still wearing my favourite nightdress, which was already spotted with the tell-tale greeny-brown gloop.

By the time that the children were leaving for school, my head was tightly wrapped in a Tesco's bag, the handles of which were flopping around my ears. I bundled my head into a towel, in case someone came to the door, then busied myself around the house. By ten o'clock I received my first phone call, it was May; 'Can I come over?' I instinctively reached up and patted my plastic bag wrapped head, apologising that I was unavailable. 'I'm sorry, I meant that I am coming over now. Rory has just phoned me, the school boiler broke down and three of them are heading towards your house, I arranged to pick them up in half an hour.' 'But my head's covered in henna, I've run out of it, I can't wash it off and put some more on later. You'll just have to look at a head full of yuck, wrapped up in a Tesco's bag.' I warned her. 'That's ok, I'm sure Georgina won't mind.' she cooed back. Georgina, the school slut was coming over. Georgina, the girl who offered her sexual favours to her male classmates and wore thick make-up to school. Bugger!

As I put down the phone, I texted Nina for advice. She replied: wash the whole lot off and don't look like a retard! But as I read it I could hear the chatter of excited and lively children walking down the drive. As I walked to the front door, I could feel the cold wet dye slowly running down the side of my face, I wiped it off with my fingers. Georgina stood with the boys, open mouthed and wary of the dressing-gown clad figure which stood before her. I gave her my most winning smile and welcomed them in. May's car pulled up on the drive.

Within minutes, I was waving May, Rory and Georgina off. I ordered Alex off to tidy his bedroom and he walked up to the computer and switched it on. I carried on, pottering around the house, picking up the sweet wrappers, piling up the newspapers and sorting out the washing. 'Can I go over to Patrick's house?' he innocently asked. 'Is Patrick's mother at home' I queried. 'No, but she won't mind.' Patrick is the naughtiest and funniest child in the class. He rarely attends lessons, usually spending his days on the corridor, pulling funny faces and giggling at his own antics. I know because Alex spends most of his days in Patrick's company, sharing the empty corridor. 'Can you believe this, May has refused to let Rory go round to Patrick's because his mother isn't home' Alex looked up from his Facebook messages, to watch me as I became increasingly flustered explaining that I didn't trust the boys in an empty house. He shook his head at my antics and turned back to his computer.

By lunchtime the streaks of henna had covered a large proportion of my face, my hands were dyed brown and the clumps had glued my nightdress to my back. I decided I had had enough and retired to the shower-room. As I finished washing my hands, the hot tap came off in my hand. I called to Alex to turn the water off at the mains. He replied that he didn't know how to, but I didn't hear him, waiting patiently by the sink, with water gushing out of the tap. Eventually I realised he hadn't even logged out of Facebook, so I walked downstairs and showed him how to turn off the stopvalve.. Soon the flow had reduced to a trickle, I put the tap back together and turned the water back on, smug in the knowledge that I didn't need a man in my life. But the smugness was short lived as the water started to pour out again. I decided to phone up my neighbour and ask if I could use her shower but a quick glimpse in the mirror, as I walked to the phone, convinced me to stay at home. I resorted to showering with the hot tap running, then turned off the stop cock. Alex looked up from the computer as I warned him I was going to the builder's merchants in the nearby town.

As I walked into the builder's merchants, I could feel the grit of unwashed henna in my hair but it was the same colour as my newly dyed hair, I could get away with it. I walked to the display of bathroom taps, looking for sink taps which would look out of place in a public toilet. There weren't any, I looked again, reading through the 'bath tap' stickers. The assistant came up and helped me. Sure enough, there were no traditional sink taps in the display. She wandered off to her computer, then reassured me that there might be the odd tap in the warehouse. I waited with mounting anxiety, wandering over to the kitchen tap display, to keep myself occupied. One hundred pounds and bathroom and kitchen taps later, I drove home.

The hot tap was easy to change, the hardest part was searching for the tools in the garage. Emboldened by my success, I turned to the cold tap. It wouldn't budge. I sprayed it with WD40, until I became dizzy and intoxicated, but no success, it was locked tight. Never mind, I still had the kitchen tap to replace and this looked quite exciting. I reached under the sink and stretched towards the back of the unit, scattering pans as I did so. But the base of the tap wasn't there; I stuck my head in the cupboard to look at the tap but it was behind the sink, rammed into a tiny space, far too small to put my hand in, let alone turn the nut.

It was nearly four o'clock, time to collect Nina from her piano lesson. I drove to the teacher's house, reflecting on my lack of achievement. As I drove into the farmyard I could see Nina walking awkwardly towards me in a monstrous pair of Wellington boots. My heart sank as she climbed into the car and I screeched 'You've not just had a piano lesson in Wellington boots, have you?' 'Don't worry, it's a farm house, everyone wears boots here', she tried to reassure me 'I was over at Cannock Chase this afternoon, on a Geography field trip, I was in a hurry, I took the boots off as I walked into the house.' 'Oh yes, of course, how did the trip go?' I asked absent-mindedly. 'We didn't do much, there was a man lying on the floor, he's been savaged by an Alsatian dog and the dog's owner just ran off. We had to see to him and wheel his bike to the visitor's centre.' Nina was off, recounting the gruesome details of the incident.

The following day, Alex came home and muttered something about the class cover supervisor being sexist but I was too busy cooking to listen properly. On Wednesday he came home in tears, having been kicked off the football team. I listened as he sobbed that it was punishment for being rude to the cover supervisor the previous day. 'But you said she was being sexist. What happened?' and I listened to a long and drawn out story about the woman chatting to a group of girls at the front of the class, packing in forty minutes of fashion and style advice to the silly little girls. Alex, surprisingly well behaved and keen to work, asked her to keep the noise down, which she steadfastly refused to do. Alex put his pen down and turned to his friend, competing with the cover supervisor to keep up the most inane conversation. But by that time, she was keen to return to her role of behaviour manager and she told Alex to be quiet. Alex, my strong willed and determined Alex, was incensed and loudly accused her of sexism but she complained to his form teacher, who kicked him off the football team.

It took seven minutes to drive to Alex's school, park and loudly request a meeting with the form teacher, the head of year, or the head-teacher. The secretary, ready to pack up and go home, looked a bit bemused but rang round staff, desperately searching for someone who could appease this middle aged (and well henna'd) ball of fury. The head of year, clearly used to such experiences and diplomatic as ever, calmed me down and promised a full investigation. I felt almost calm as I drove home, meeting Pip's taxi on the drive.

Pip bounded out of the taxi and ran up to me 'what's wrong? Is everything ok?' he anxiously demanded. 'Oh, it's ok, I just nipped up to Alex's school. How was your day?' I casually asked him. 'I've punched another boy, they are going to kick me out of college. There was this teacher, called John, he was speaking to me, he said I could get kicked out. Kim wasn't there, she was looking after Laura, she took her back to school, I was on my own, I told them I had Asperger's, he wasn't nice to me.' it all came tumbling out incoherently. 'Don't worry, let's go in and discuss it over dinner.' I said as I put my arm around his hunched figure and guided him into the house. Within minutes the whole sorry tale had been recounted, plans drawn and labelled with his odd, dyspraxic handwriting, unclearly detailing their positions and relative movements in the minutes which led up to the punch.

On Friday, Alex's teacher reassured me that the cover supervisor had been sexist and inappropriate but would be attending a behaviour management course in the near future. Pip's teacher phoned me to tell me that there would be a full investigation into his incident and he would probably receive a formal reprimand but would remain on the course. Pip came home looking anxious and glum but Alex was crowing. 'I blackmailed a cover supervisor' he boasted, 'she was being sexist. She wouldn't tell a girl off for being rude but told us off, so I threatened to tell the head of year. She agreed to drop it but the girl was terrified I would blab and she would have to go to the head of year. She was wetting herself!'

I've set myself the task of turning Alex's behaviour around this weekend, it's going to be a long, hard slog.