Yesterday I was working an hour later than usual.
My husband was out during part of the day with his walking group. My daughter who is on holiday from university was going to spending most of the day with a friend.
Though my husband would be back mid-afternoon he is not great at cooking quickly and is also sometimes tired after walking. We had two frozen 2 portion tubs of moussaka in the freezer. So the night before I took one out to defrost, and suggested that if my daughter was going to be around for supper he defrosted the second one as well. I suggested the two of them stayed in touch about if she wanted to eat with us.
I got back after a demanding day. at 6.15. Husband had been home since 3.30 and - after message from daughter that she'd be back by 6.30 - had got the second tub out of the freezer but not done anything with it on the ground that 'she might not come back after all'
He has put out a basket with one slice of brown bread cut into two pieces and made a salad out of lettuce, cucumber and grated carrot.
He puts out microwaved moussaka for the two of us on non microwaveable plates. The food is barely warm, and needs to be scraped off the plates and reheated. At the same time my daughter reappears at the stated time, so I begin trying to reheat the second tub of moussaka. At this point I realise that no attempt to defrost it has been made, so it will have to be slowly defrosted and then heated up.
I had imagined that my husband would be up to the task of warming up one load of ready-made food, and defrosting and warming up another lot of the same food - so that we could sit together and have a family meal. Instead there was just lots of getting up and down and dealing with the moussaka.
I told my husband that I felt it was all a bit of a mess and he said that was because he was tired after the walk.
I told him that I thought three hours was adequate to recover - via a bath or shower - and manage a bit of food warming. But apparently I was being unreasonable.
What do you reckon?