Friday, 2 December

Firstly – AAAAARRRRGHHHHHH, FML, HOW in the name of everlasting fuck is it December already? I am not ready! December is for decking the halls with boughs of holly and rosy-cheeked carollers and Baileys, so much lovely Baileys, and I am not ready, not in the slightest. Work is frantic, with the Big Project to be finished for early January, I am still going to those awful HIIT classes, though I am not entirely sure why, apart from the fact that I don’t want Alan to feel that I am beaten that easily, but I do seem to be wobbling slightly less, and my desire for Mint Clubs has somewhat abated after reading how many burpees I would have to do to burn each one off. My festive spirit is lacking, gone away, hiding under a rock. I dunno. December will undoubtedly herald (I was pleased with that pun, but Simon didn’t get it all when I used it earlier, not even when I shouted ‘HARK!’ at him) a barrage of emails from our families, demanding present suggestions and wittering about Christmas dinner and bastarding Christmas puddings, not to mention the Christmas cards from people I have not seen in years and didn’t much like even back then, containing the miserable hell of the round robins detailing Jemima and Sebastian’s latest astonishing achievements. And, instead of one dispiriting Christmas party for the whole company in a second-rate hotel, there are millions of the bastarding things to go to. There is a ‘team’ Christmas lunch (Ed might cry), a department party and then the full company party. They are all in jolly nice hotels or restaurants, though, but there will be a fateful combination of lots of booze and the need to keep up the façade of being a Proper Person and also the tiny fact of them jumping to the conclusion that I am single and childless, which is why you should never assume because it makes an ass out of you and me and FML, and who am I any more, using expressions like that. On the plus side, if I keep the HIIT classes, I might manage a semi-slinky dress for the parties, instead of seeking out something whose main plus point is ‘forgiving’ …

Oh God. So much to do.

Secondly – tonight was finally the hallowed Christmas Fair. I say ‘finally’, but it was actually pretty much a race against time to get ready for it. But we did it.

I had to take a precious afternoon off, having fibbed slightly and claimed I had a doctor’s appointment, cunningly telling Alan and co. that it was for ‘Women’s Problems’ in order to forestall any questions. Technically, I told myself, it was ‘Women’s Problems’, as everyone seems to think children are women’s problems rather than men’s. I have blithely used the ‘Women’s Problems’ excuse for years, but somehow it is slightly more embarrassing to have to trot it out to whippersnapper millennial sorts than the repressed middle-aged chaps at my old job.

Cara, Katie, Sam and I, with a handful of other stalwarts, turned up at the hall this afternoon and basically threw every single fairy light we owned at it. I had sneaked into the park early one morning before the dog walkers and pinched a bin-bag full of ivy, which possibly may or may not technically be stealing, but is probably OK as it is For the Children.

I also purchased a staple gun in a fit of enthusiasm, and I think it may now literally be the best thing I have ever owned. It’s amazing! Anything you want attached to a wall – BAM! Staple-gun it! I may staple-gun Simon’s bollocks to the wall, as he insisted he was far too busy to come along or pick up the kids today, saying that he had told me that it was a bad idea to take over the PTA. I stapled-gunned ivy all over the hall, ignoring the naysayers who were fretting about whether we were allowed to staple-gun things to the wall, and only slightly envisaging Simon’s face (the other good thing about a staple gun is that when people annoy you when you are stapling, you can secretly pretend you are Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver and mutter ‘You lookin’ at me?’ as you staple, which is remarkably satisfying). Kiki meanwhile floated about getting in everyone’s way and draping herself becomingly in ivy, until I brandished the staple gun at her menacingly and told her to pull her weight.

The stallholders arrived, bearing their many wares. I had assumed they would be lovely, jolly, friendly, smiley ladies, but it turns out the crafting world is a cut-throat place, and I was forced to intervene in several spats as they attempted to encroach on each other’s space/annex extra tables/block views of competitors with strategically placed scarf stands. I may have to do more research next year, as apparently putting ‘Kooky Kandle Krafts’ next to ‘It’s a Bomb’ bath bombs (a truly unfortunate name) was a major faux pas, as they have been carrying on some sort of blood feud for years over Kooky Kandle Krafts mistaking one of It’s a Bomb’s lurid concoctions for a cupcake she had just bought and attempting to eat it. It seems it got very ugly, as Kooky Kandles foamed at the mouth, and in between spitting out glitter accused It’s a Bomb of attempted murder (sort of understandable with that TRULY AWFUL NAME) and It’s a Bomb counter-accused Kooky Kandles of shamelessly stealing her stock, and they have been sworn enemies ever since.

Other than that, it was relatively uneventful. To Sam’s immense relief, no one pissed on him during his Santa turn, though he did complain afterwards that spending two hours in a polyester Santa suit had given him prickly heat on his bollocks (‘I mean, there is a reason why I never wear man-made fibres, Ellen!’). He then grumbled that knowing his luck, this would be the week that all his lurking round Sainsbury’s paid off and he finally met the love of his life beside the extra virgin olive oil, just as he was squirming about, trying to discreetly relieve the itching, so that the love of his life would probably run for the hills, thinking Sam had crabs.

Peter and Jane vanished into the melee of screaming, sugar-crazed children and old ladies (where do these flocks of old ladies come from that populate Christmas Fairs? You never see so many of them roaming in gangs at any other time. Do they have a special bus that they travel the country in, visiting every Christmas Fair they pass, and collecting more OAPs en route to swell their numbers, the better to block the aisles by standing around complaining about how disappointing the home baking stall is, and really, £3 for a sponge that looks like that, they would be ashamed to ask £3 for such a Sponge of Shame, and wasn’t it a pity there was no nice fruit cake?), and reappeared periodically to demand more money. I discovered afterwards that Peter had spent most of his money on the tombola, gambling with a dogged enthusiasm that suggests we might have trouble keeping him out of the bookies in future. Or perhaps I should try to harvest his potential gambling addiction for good and encourage him to become a professional poker player like Victoria Coren Mitchell? Apparently she makes loads of money playing poker. He might have to work on his poker face, though, as currently you can tell at least ten minutes in advance when he is working up to a poo (actually, Simon does the same), and even if he has only managed a silent but deadly fart he still can’t help but give a little snigger of joy at his latest achievement. I did once have high hopes that perhaps he could be destined for a career as an international gigolo playboy, as he is very good at charming old ladies, but that was before the farting showed no signs of abating. He could easily combine the international gigolo playboy thing with being a professional poker player, though, because as far as I am aware, they both involve spending a lot of time in casinos in places like Monte Carlo. Admittedly I have not put a lot of research into either career option.

Kiki had had to go home, apparently to get herself and her children changed into something even more photogenic, and returned clad in an eye-poppingly tight Christmas jumper dragging a mutinous Lalabelle and Trixierose dressed as elves, and a disgruntled-looking man in a suit and tie, who turned out to be her husband Keith, as he hissed repeatedly, ‘For fuck’s sake, Karen, can you just put that bloody phone down for a second and stop with the photos?’ as Kiki hissed back, ‘Stop calling me Karen. Everyone needs to call me Kiki for my fucking brand, OK? You’ve ruined that Insta Story now. I’m going to have to do another one. Don’t you want that trip to the Maldives, Keith?’

Sunday, 4 December

After years of benign neglect by my father, he seems to have decided in his old age that he is ready to play the doting family man. Daddy and Natalia rang this morning to say they were ‘just passing’ again, and thought they might pop in for Sunday lunch. Up until that point I had delegated Sunday lunch to Simon, who had declared that we would just have cheese sandwiches. I was quite looking forward to Simon discovering that actually cheese sandwiches are not entirely the simple repast he had planned, because Jane will only eat cheese sandwiches if the cheese is grated, not sliced, and Simon will only eat cheese sandwiches if they have pickle in, but everyone else threatens to vomit on the spot if there is even a trace of pickle on their sandwiches and Peter doesn’t like butter in his cheese sandwiches. By the time everybody has specified their cheese fucking sandwich preferences, I have lost the will to live and want to just tell them all to cock off and starve and feed the cheese to my lovely dog, who doesn’t care if it’s grated or sliced or even cut into manageable pieces, as he’s perfectly capable of eating blocks of cheese whole. (As we discovered when he broke into the fridge and ate a chunk of cheddar, an unopened packet of taleggio, a good slab of brie and a whole camembert. He then projectile-vomited a fondue. Which was nice.) Anyway, the main reason I don’t just feed him the cheese is because it gives him cheesy bum. He is hard to love when he has cheesy bum.

However, my allegedly ‘just passing’ father deciding to invite himself to Sunday lunch meant a mercy dash to Sainsbury’s to grab provisions for a roast, where I may or may not have taken advantage of insisting that Peter and Jane stayed at home with Simon to also go to a very quick HIIT class while I was out, as I have got carried away with myself and bought a Christmas party dress that is not forgiving in the slightest, but is very definitely slinky. At Sainsbury’s I also bought many amusing things as ‘stocking fillers’, which I will either put somewhere safe and find sometime around July, or I will forget about, or in the extremely unlikely event of them actually making it into anyone’s stockings, everyone will be utterly underwhelmed by them and ignore them. I did get the last milk chocolate Chocolate Oranges, though, hurrah! I snatched them from under the nose of a scary-looking woman who I am sure I once had a run-in with at a soft-play – there can’t be many people with ‘Juztin Beebor 4ever’ tattooed on their neck! She did look more than mildly threatening, though, so I beat a hasty retreat at that point, no doubt to Simon’s relief, as he struggles to understand the necessity of Lovely Things for stockings and makes unhelpful comments like ‘Why can’t we just put their normal presents in the stockings? Why do we have to have all this bastarding tat for the stockings?’ This is yet another sign that Simon has No Soul, for everyone knows that stockings are for small, trinkety things, and that the Big Presents (even if they are quite physically small, they are still the Big Presents) go under the tree, and one should not deviate from this or one will break The System and Christmas will be ruined FOREVER!

Lunch went off relatively well. Peter has developed a thumping great crush on Natalia and flirted with her most shamelessly before attempting to prove himself worthy of her love by eating his own weight in roast beef and Yorkshire puddings. Natalia seemed unimpressed by his feat, however, even when Peter informed her that he had just eaten twelve Yorkshire puddings, nine roast potatoes and four helpings of beef. I honestly don’t know where he puts it – it is an astonishing thing. Since Natalia seemed disinclined to declare her undying love for him in recognition of his heroic digestive system, Peter announced that he could eat more Yorkshires than that, actually, and was all set for another helping, when I was forced to forbid it, for fear he might actually puke. I don’t know where that child puts his food. He eats an obscene amount and never seems to put on an ounce, whereas if I had eaten as many Yorkshire puddings as he had, I wouldn’t be able to do my skirt up tomorrow, HIIT class or no HIIT class.

Anyway, it was a tiny bit awkward when Daddy asked what we were doing for Christmas, and I had to say we were going to Mum’s.

‘Oh,’ said Daddy. ‘And Jessica too?’

‘Err, yes. Jessica too.’

‘Right,’ said Daddy. ‘That’s a bit of a shame, because actually we had hoped to spend Christmas with you and your sister. You know, Natalia’s first Christmas with the family. Couldn’t you change your plans? And speak to Jessica too?’ asked Daddy plaintively.

I choked on my wine. ‘Change our plans?’ I spluttered. ‘Daddy, are you seriously suggesting that you want me to tell Mum that we are not coming for Christmas because we are spending it with you and Natalia? Jesus Christ, Daddy! Have you forgotten what Mum is like? She will literally hire a hitman and have you killed, or have us kidnapped and driven to Yorkshire to make sure we spend Christmas with her. I don’t want to have to go all the way to Yorkshire tied up in the back of a Transit van. I get travel sick! And not only that, Jessica does not change plans, you know that. I’m pretty sure Jessica bribed the hospital staff to keep Granny’s life support switched on for an extra week so she didn’t have to cancel her holiday to Antigua! She is not going to countenance the Christmas plans being changed.’

‘Oh, you exaggerate, Ellen!’ said Daddy. ‘Jessica isn’t that bad. Your mother, on the other hand … Well, I suppose I see your point. The woman is a stone-cold, batshit-mental bitch!’

‘Even Grandpa gets to say batshit and bitch,’ objected Peter. ‘That’s not fair. Why don’t I?’

‘Because I am not responsible for your grandfather’s language and I am responsible for yours!’ I snapped, wondering if I should be defending my mother against Daddy’s description of her, especially talking about her like that in front of Natalia, but in truth I was struggling to come up with counter arguments against it, as it was a fairly accurate assessment of her character.

Christ, I will be glad to get back to work for a rest!

Thursday, 8 December

Spanxed to the hilt (I should perhaps have gone for a slightly more forgiving dress – the HIIT classes and lack of biscuits have not had that dramatic an effect), I tripped merrily off to the Big Christmas Party last night.

Oh, it was divine. I rather regretted the Spanx as I could not do justice to the lovely food and I did consider popping to the loo to take them off – but then what to do with them? They were too large to fit in my dinky clutch bag and too expensive to simply be abandoned. And what if someone found them and put two and two together and realised that I was looking rather more bulgy after my trip to the bogs, and they thought perhaps I had been shagging and had cast them aside in a moment of passion instead of merely wishing to restore the circulation to my nether regions? I kept the Spanx on.

The other downside to the Spanx was that I was somewhat lacking in blotting paper to absorb the lashing of free booze, so I may have ended up a little tipsy. Actually, I may have ended up a lot tipsy.

I have an unpleasant recollection of sitting next to Ed and asking him if the cock and balls on the wall at my interview was a new and cunning sort of psychometric test. He looked startled and said no, no, it most certainly wasn’t. I expressed disappointment, and said I thought perhaps my handling of it had been the clincher that got me the job. Ed replied that no, what had got me the job was that I talked less hyperbolic bullshit management-speak than the other candidates, and therefore he chose me on the basis that I would be the least-annoying person to work with. I suppose there are worse reasons to be given a job.

There was dancing. If there is one thing I cannot resist when pissed, it is dancing. I danced with enthusiasm, but I fear without grace or elegance, although when considering the dancing, it is another reason to be glad I left the Spanx on, as however much I may have embarrassed myself with my moves’n’grooves, at least I did not inadvertently show my bits.

And then – oh then, the bliss! As the entertainment, there was a faded nineties boy band, who I had assumed had given up music years ago and were all working as insurance salesmen or something. But no, there they were, still touring. Admittedly, Christmas parties, however swanky, aren’t quite the same as selling out the O2, but I was very excited.

‘God, I love a bit of ironic kitsch!’ said Alan when they came on.

I was indignant at this. ‘Do not call the music of my youth “ironic kitsch”, boy!’ I declared. ‘One day you will be thrilled to see that … um –’ I struggled to think of a Cool Young Person’s Band (I insist on Radio 2 in the car), so the closest I could come up with was Ed Sheeran, and even in my inebriated state I was pretty sure Alan did not think Ed Sheeran was ‘cool’ – ‘a band you like is still touring and you get to see them live for free and almost close enough to lick!’

‘Don’t lick the band, Ellen,’ said Alan, looking alarmed, ‘I don’t think that’s allowed.’

I did not lick the band. I contented myself with singing along to each and every one of their Greatest Hits, even the ones that I didn’t realise were theirs, nineties boy bands being fairly interchangeable even in the nineties. I think I may have bonded with Lydia over the singing, as she also proved to be a fan.

It was a splendid night. The only way it could be more splendid next year would be if they got Rick Astley or Chesney Hawkes along. I got a selfie with the band. I may frame it.

Friday, 9 December

Urgh! What stupid fucker came up with the idea of having a Christmas Party on a Thursday night? That was a very bloody stupid idea. I don’t know why anyone bothered coming in today. No one got any work done and we all just shuffled around like zombies, desperately gulping tea, not entirely able to meet each other’s eyes after last night’s bonding and oversharing. I had to take some papers into Ed’s office at one point and I thought he had gone out, until I heard a snore and realised he had gone to sleep under his desk! The perks of being the boss, I suppose, though it did occur to me that maybe he wasn’t as hungover as us, he just spends most of his time asleep under his desk and that’s why he doesn’t like having to come out or go to meetings.

And then tonight I had the joy of the school Mums’ (and Sam and Julian’s) Night Out. Dear God, these nights were bad enough when you only had to attend, but it is amazing that I didn’t kill anyone in the process of organising it, between everyone insisting that their various dietary requirements were catered for (Paleo, Slimming World, potential egg allergy because sometimes omelettes make her feel a bit dodgy, no foreign food, no sauce, no food touching other food – the only person who didn’t make a fuss about the food was Helen O’Connor, who is genuinely coeliac) and getting the deposits (someone actually tried to pay in bitcoins, WTAF?).

But tonight it was finally the happy night! Despite my desperate manoeuvrings to try to sit between Sam and Cara, I ended up trapped at the other end of the table between Erica ‘No Foreign Food’ Mitchell and ‘Totally Paleo’ Julian. I tried to look polite while Erica held forth to me on what does and does not constitute a ‘Foreign Food’ (chicken tikka masala is all right, as are kebabs, because they’re ‘not really foreign’, but sushi is the Devil’s Work, because her grandpa was in the war), and Julian purring that he was getting together a group for Pilates in the Park on a Sunday morning, if I was interested, and had I ever thought about modelling, because I had a very interesting bone structure, and he could offer me an excellent deal on a one-on-one photo shoot, just me and him, if I was interested. I even managed to bite my tongue when I overhead Abigail ‘The Wrong Kind of Gluten’ Porter ordering the fish and chips for her main course, despite the glutoniumed batter, because apparently ‘that’s not actually gluten like the gluten in bread, it’s different!’, but I took some comfort that Sam was trapped too between Fiona Montague (who had once again kindly informed me that I looked ‘tired’ when I arrived and offered me the number for her ‘magical little facials lady, honestly, you wouldn’t believe how it perks the skin up’) and Darcy ‘Death by Eggs’ Chisholm, who was asking if there were eggs in every single item on the menu, and describing to Sam in great detail how difficult it is for her to avoid eggs, and how her doctor simply won’t take her seriously, just because her allergy test came back negative.

I had resolved not to drink, because clearly alcohol is evil and wrong and after last night I was Never Drinking Again, but within five minutes of sitting down I was knocking back the cheap Pinot with the best of them in a desperate attempt to numb the pain.

Finally, finally, the last cheap cracker had been pulled, the final flimsy paper crown had floated to the floor under the table, the last joke had been told while Erica snorted that she was so over all these politically correct jokes, and why shouldn’t she say ‘gollywog’ if she wants to, and it was time for the bill. Which was presented to me, as everyone looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to work out what everyone owed and then collect the money in. After the best part of a bottle of house white.

‘Are we just splitting it all equally?’ shouted Francesca Shaw, who had insisted she couldn’t drink the house wine, and so had ordered a £40 bottle of Rioja, which she had refused to share with anyone else, followed by three large Baileys, and who also happens to drive a top-of-the-range Lexus 4x4, lives in an even bigger house than Lucy Atkinson’s Perfect Mummy, and whose husband is something terribly busy and important to do with investment banking.

I mildly pointed out that I didn’t think that was terribly fair to all the people who hadn’t ordered expensive bottles of wine, or liqueurs, and was particularly unfair for those people who were driving and had been on soft drinks or water. Apparently this was quite unreasonable of me, and Francesca was stunned that she was going to have to pay extra. I finally got it all worked out, and announced how much everyone owed, when Deborah Green said helpfully, ‘Yes, but minus the deposit we already paid.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I paid the deposit last month, and that’s been taken off the bill already.’

‘Yes, but we paid a deposit, so it should be £10 less,’ insisted Deborah.

I explained again, but Erica and Abigail had also chimed in, insisting that the deposit meant everyone should be paying £10 less than the total I had given them.

The final straw was when Diana Baker looked up from tapping away at her phone and announced, ‘I’ve been working it out too, and it comes out as £2 a head less than you are charging us.’

Through gritted teeth I ground out, ‘I did say, Diana, that I was rounding it up by £2 a person, as service isn’t included, and so that will pay for the tip. As well as making it a round number, so it is easier for change.’

‘But that’s a £60 tip!’ said Eleanor Blackstone in horror. ‘Why are we leaving them a £60 tip?’

‘Well,’ I suggested, as calmly as I could, given that what I really wanted to do was to smack my head repeatedly against a brick wall while screaming WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL?, ‘maybe we’re leaving them a £60 tip because they have been really quite busy with us tonight, because we’re a massive table, and they haven’t stopped bringing us drinks and coffees and running around after us all night, and so maybe THEY HAVE BASTARDING WELL EARNED IT!’

‘Yes, but £60! I mean, they are getting paid for serving us tonight!’ argued Diana.

‘Minimum wage!’ I shrieked. ‘They get the minimum wage! Do you even know how much that is?

‘I just think that maybe £1 each would be enough!’ said Eleanor. ‘I mean, if the minimum wage isn’t enough to live on, then that’s really something for the government to deal with, it isn’t actually our problem, is it? Or they should just get another job, or I don’t know, maybe take in some ironing or something?’

‘OH MY FUCKING GOD! It’s £1, Eleanor! One FUCKING POUND! You are spending three weeks in the Bahamas over Christmas WITH YOUR FULL-TIME NANNY along, and you are quibbling about a £1 or £2 tip? And also, if we make it £1 each, then no one will have the exact change and everyone will be wanting £1 back and then it will all take FOR FUCKING EVER AND I WANT TO GO HOME! WE ARE LEAVING £2 EACH FOR THE TIP, OK?’

We left £2 each for the tip.

Sam said afterwards it reminded him of the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs, only instead of waiting for the heist to go wrong and people to start dying one by one throughout the film, he thought I was just going to murder everyone there at once. Possibly just with the power of my extremely withering glare.

I don’t think anyone else will ask me to organise the Mums’ Christmas Night Out again. Oh bollocks, and I still have to get the teacher present money off the tight bastards.

Monday, 12 December

I have been noticing something at work that I never really noticed before – whenever Lydia, who is the only woman in our office with children (or rather the only one admitting to having children), leaves early or comes in late due to something child-related, everyone chunters and mutters and grumbles about it. Lydia seems a nice person, she pulls her weight, she gets her part of projects completed on time, she doesn’t seem to be a slacker, but there is somehow this implication that by taking a morning or afternoon off here and there, she is somehow not doing her bit, that she is shirking her workload in favour of parenting. And yet should one of the men in the office leave to go and do something child-related, far from people viewing him as a workshy bastard, he is positively lauded as Dad of the Year for going to a Nativity or an assembly.

I’ve never really noticed it before, I suppose because I was the one dashing out to the Christmas concerts and sports days and open afternoons and no one really says anything to Lydia’s face about how they resent her taking time off to be there for her children, but there is a definite undercurrent of irritation about how dare she try to be a mother and work as well. And I now recognise some of the barbed comments that are flung Lydia’s way, because I’ve been on the receiving end of them myself, but without the context of the remarks made behind Lydia’s back, I hadn’t really realised how much this annoyed people. And it’s not even just the men. Gaby from HR made snide remarks when she ‘popped in’ to the office and found Lydia not there ‘again’ (I’m pretty sure Gaby is a Grade A bitch anyway, though).

And yet, Lydia isn’t actually taking any more time off than she is due. She doesn’t stay late, like Alan does, and she doesn’t come in early like James does most days, so he can avoid the school run and leave it to his poor wife, but she isn’t taking the piss. People just assume that now she is a mother, she can’t properly combine working – and doing her job well – with parenting. When I announced that I wouldn’t be here this Friday afternoon because I had a dentist appointment (school Christmas Concert), everyone said, ‘Oh, you poor thing! I hate the dentist, I hope it’s not too painful!’ and didn’t question it any further. Alan went so far as to say that if I hadn’t finished the stuff I was working on for the new project by the time I had to leave on Friday, it could easily wait till next week.

By contrast, when Lydia came in to a 10.30 a.m. meeting this morning at exactly 10.30 a.m., having arranged to come in late so she could go to her children’s Christmas Concert (I want to go to her school, where the concert must only last an hour! Ours drags on forever, with endless verses of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Sodding Reindeer’. I swear there are more verses each year. I think they just make up new ones and add them on to fuck with our minds), Alan remarked nastily, ‘Good of you to join us, Lydia. Of course, it would have been helpful if you had been in earlier so you could have given me the figures I needed for the Hunter project before this meeting, but I suppose that can’t be helped.’

Lydia, rather marvellously, simply shrugged and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Alan. I sent you those figures on Friday, but it must have been after you’d left. Didn’t you leave at 2 p.m.? Anyway, if you check your inbox, they should be there.’

I felt terrible for Lydia, though, because even as she said that, and Alan muttered something that sounded rather like a grudging, ‘Oh, yeah. There they are. Um, thanks,’ I could see a slight flush on her cheeks and set to her jaw as she justified herself yet again, and I thought maybe I should just tell Alan to shut the fuck up and stop being a dick, but then I chickened out, because I haven’t been there long enough to start telling people things like that, and also, because I am a coward as well as a liar and didn’t want to overly draw attention to myself on the whole subject of women and children, I simply said nothing and settled for silently hating myself instead, while coming up with cutting ripostes to Alan in my head. I did try to give Lydia a sympathetic smile, but I think it might have come out wrong, because she just gave me a rather odd scared look in return.

Wednesday, 14 December

Oh, happy days! I had no sooner walked in the door from work – I hadn’t even taken my shoes off – when Jane presented me with her Christmas list. I had been feeling smugly smug that she had stopped nagging me about having an Instagram account, and was pleased that clearly all my stern lectures about growing up too fast, enjoying what was left of her childhood, and of course, the dangers of STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET being able to see her photos and so find her, murder her and leave her dismembered body in a bin-bag in a skip (OK, I maybe glossed over a few of these details in my bijou Stranger Danger rant), had finally sunk in and she had decided to just wait until she is thirteen. However, her list read:

My own Instagram account

YouTube channel

GoPro HERO camera

GoPro Drone

Tripod

Laptop with video editing software

I took one look at it and handed it back, with a single word.

‘No.’

‘OMG, like WHY NOT?’ said a furious Jane.

‘OMG, like, for a start, because I’ve told you not to say “OMG” or use “like” for, like, every, like, second, like, word, because it’s, like, really, like, annoying! And also because I have told you that you are not having an Instagram account until you are old enough, and since you don’t seem to have included a time machine on your list, you are still NOT OLD ENOUGH! So, hence, NO to the social media accounts, and also NO to the several thousand pounds worth of electronics, for a similar reason, BECAUSE YOU ARE ELEVEN!’

‘AAAARRRRRRGH!’ raged Jane. ‘Don’t try to be funny. It’s so pathetic when you try to be funny. And it’s awful when you try and pretend to be talking like me. It just makes you sound like a sad freak. You are not impressing anyone. And it is SO UNFAIR that you won’t let me on Instagram. I can’t believe I am the ONLY PERSON IN MY CLASS WHO DOESN’T HAVE AN ACCOUNT!’

‘That’s not true, darling. Sophie doesn’t have one either.’

‘Only because you have brainwashed Sam into not letting her have one and convinced him that Insta is full of paedophiles. That’s like TWO lives you’ve ruined, Mother. I hope you’re like pleased with yourself!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Jane. Stop exaggerating. Freddy Dawkins isn’t on Instagram either, and nor is Daisy Cooper.’

‘OMG! OMG! THAT is who you are making me be like! Freddy Dawkins has NO FRIENDS because he’s probably going to be a serial killer and so no one would even like FOLLOW his Insta because it would only be weird shit like DEAD ANIMALS or something, and Daisy Cooper doesn’t even like have a TV because her mum doesn’t even like believe in electronics because she like thinks the rays will fry your brain, and so Daisy doesn’t even have like any friends because she hasn’t even HEARD of like Zoella, and like her mum makes her wear clothes out of DEAD PEOPLE’S SHOPS! IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO TO ME NEXT? WILL YOU MAKE ME DRESS OUT OF DEAD PEOPLE’S SHOPS? PROBABLY IN CLOTHES THAT BELONGED TO PEOPLE FREDDY DAWKINS KILLED, BECAUSE YOU HATE ME?’ screamed Jane. She has not had a good paddy for a while, and evidently had been saving the rage for one good blowout.

‘Jane, I really wish you wouldn’t swear.’

‘YOU SWEAR! YOU ARE SUCH A HYPOCRITE! And you’re never here anyway. You have abandoned me to be a latchkey child in favour of YOUR career and now you won’t even let ME try to have a career of MY own!’

‘Jane, you’re eleven. You don’t need to be thinking about pursuing a career yet. And what are these dead people’s shops you are ranting about?’ I enquired, attempting to gloss over my own hypocritically bad language and general bad examples.

‘You know. The dead people’s shops on the High Street that you always make us look in, so you can buy second-hand books. And they always smell funny, and have loads of dead people’s clothes and DVDs, even though who even buys DVDs anymore?’

‘Do you mean the charity shops?’ I said, confused.

‘Yes! The dead people’s shops!’

‘They’re really not, you know. You can get some very good bargains in them. Well, I hear you can. There are urban myths of people who find vintage Chanel handbags in perfect condition for a fiver, but in truth I’ve never found anything that doesn’t look a bit like …’

‘Someone has died in it?’ supplied Jane.

‘Well, yes.’

‘Because they are dead people’s shops! And you are trying to change the subject away from the fact that you ARE RUINING MY LIFE!!’

‘Look, Jane, darling,’ I said soothingly. ‘Even if I were to allow you an Instagram account – which I’m absolutely not going to do, by the way – I would definitely not even be thinking about buying you £600 cameras, or £800 drones, OR a new laptop as you have a perfectly serviceable laptop, nor would I be shelling out for expensive editing software. BECAUSE YOU ARE ELEVEN!’

‘That is just another way that you are ruining my life!’ shrieked Jane. ‘IF you had let me go on Instagram when I first wanted to, I would totally have like a MASSIVE following by now, and so GoPro would give me all that for free. It’s YOUR FAULT you have to buy me ANYTHING! I could be getting sponsored for EVERYTHING by now AND making loads of money for my future from YouTube ads. There is a TODDLER who makes LIKE MILLIONS REVIEWING TOYS. But no! No, YOU like have to make a STUPID FUSS about like “internet safety” and RUIN MY LIFE! It’s like you don’t even want me to be like happy or like a multi-millionaire YouTuber, because you don’t even like LIKE me!’

‘Oh, FFS!’ I shouted back. ‘Come on, out of the people in your class whose parents HAVE allowed them Instagram and YouTube accounts, HOW MANY OF THEM now have millions of followers and are living off their sponsored posts? Hmm?’

‘I never said it was easy,’ snarled Jane. ‘But everyone else in my class is STUPID! It would be different for me. And what about Kiki?’

‘But everyone thinks that, darling,’ I reasoned. ‘And only a tiny handful of people are successful at it. And Kiki can only do what she does because she has someone to pay the mortgage and the bills. She doesn’t actually have to worry about money.’

‘Yes, but someone gets to be the really successful ones. So why shouldn’t it be me? If you would only let me have a chance at it. But you won’t! BECAUSE YOU DON’T EVEN CARE ABOUT MY DREAM, OR MY JOURNEY!’

Oh, these bastarding journeys. Everyone is on a fucking ‘journey’ these days. People can’t just ‘do stuff’. It is all part of the ‘journey’. I blame The X Factor. That is where all this bloody ‘journey’ nonsense seems to originate from, unfortunate souls not realising that they are being exploited for car-crash TV by having their failed auditions filmed and broadcasted and then tearfully talking afterwards about how having their humiliation shown to the nation has just been part of an ‘amazing journey’.

‘For goodness sake, Jane, you are being ridiculous.’

‘And now you are mocking my dream. You are making fun of me. I know I am meant to be a famous YouTube star, I just know it!’

‘Oh, get a grip,’ I snapped. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. And what are you going to be “famous” for? Opening boxes? Kinder eggs? Putting on make-up? Pouting into the camera while revealing your latest #sponsored #collab? These aren’t realistic goals. These people aren’t going to be able to do this forever, and what will they do then, when all they are qualified to do is duckface and open packaging? What happened to your plans to become a marine biologist or an archaeologist or palaeontologist? Why, all of a sudden, have you become so fixated on this vlogging bollocks that I actually caught you giving a running commentary to your phone on walking down the stairs the other day, only you were concentrating so hard on filming yourself that you fell down the stairs and were lucky you didn’t break your neck. I know I told you that you could be whatever you wanted to be when you grew up, but I didn’t mean for you to become some fanny on the internet. But look. If having a social media account really means that much to you, why don’t we compromise, and even though you’re a bit too young, you can have a Facebook account, as long as you add Daddy and me as friends so we can check no undesirables are trying to contact you? Hmmm? How does that sound, sweetheart?’

Jane once again stared at me as though I had just suggested she took a shit in her hands and clapped.

‘Facebook!’ she whispered aghast. ‘FACEBOOK! OMG, are you serious? Facebook is so over. It’s for old people. Like you. I can’t believe you would even suggest that to me. That is just cruel. It’s child cruelty. I could call Childline. Do you know what people would like say if they knew I had a Facebook account? I don’t know why you like even bothered having me, when you hate me so much.’

And with that, she finally flounced out the room, giving the door a good hard slam on the way out, which woke the dog up, to his immense disgust, and caused him to cast one of his very judgy looks at me.

‘Don’t you start,’ I said.

Thankfully Jane had left before I got a chance to answer her final (hopefully rhetorical) question, but when she is like this, I do honestly wonder why I bothered having children. Surely it isn’t meant to be this hard. Was it worth all that effort I put into bringing up a strong, brave, independent warrior girl, who would march to the beat of her own drum, just for her to put all that spirit I tried to instil in her to use in arguing with me about every damn thing under the sun? And what was the point anyway? Teaching her about feminism and the suffragettes and dressing her in jeans and hoodies (in fairness, that was as much an aesthetic decision as an ideological one, because if ever there was a child that did not suit pink it was Jane, and most of the pretty girly skirts and sparkly T-shirts were pink, which just looked dreadful on her), just for her to turn around and decide that, apparently just like almost every other child in the country, she wants to be an internet sensation and make millions pouting on Instagram or prancing around on YouTube. Did Emily Davison die under the hooves of the King’s horse for the nation’s pre-adolescent girls to have no greater ambition than opening boxes and applying lipstick? DID SHE?

I was musing and muttering all this to myself when Jane stormed back in.

‘Since you are intent on RUINING MY LIFE by refusing me the chance to follow my dreams, can I get my ears pierced for Christmas instead?’ she demanded.

‘Jane, we have been over this as well. I said you could get them pierced when you are thirteen.’

‘Yes, but that’s not FOREVER!’ argued Jane. ‘Why can’t I have them done now? All I want is my ears pierced. That’s all!’

‘I thought all you wanted was about £3,500 worth of electronic equipment to make a fool of yourself on the internet,’ I countered. Jane glowered at me dangerously. My resolve was cracking. I did not have the strength for another showdown. Jane glowered harder.

‘OK, OK, I’ll compromise. You’re not getting them pierced for Christmas because I can’t stand the thought of Granny moaning the whole time that you look common, but you can get them pierced for your twelfth birthday, OK? One year early. And ONE piercing in each ear. That’s all!’

‘Thank you, Mummy,’ said Jane sweetly, and skipped off looking so smugly pleased with herself that I couldn’t help but wonder if the whole YouTube/GoPro row had been expressly engineered just so that I would be broken and weak when she actually went in for the kill and asked for what she really wanted. In fairness, it’s not really that different to the time Daddy said he would buy me a dress for a university ball and we went shopping in London and I found the perfect dress straightaway in Selfridges, and Daddy looked at the price tag and turned pale and said he wasn’t paying that for a skimpy frock, so I then tried on every single dress in every single shop on Oxford Street until he lost the will to live and agreed that he would pay anything, literally anything, to be allowed to go home and have a large gin and tonic, so we went back to Selfridges and bought The Dress. So I suppose Jane does come by it honestly.

Only now do I appreciate why poor Daddy was so in need of that stiff gin, though. Parenting is bloody hard work, and actually those early, sleep-deprived, tiny-baby days were only the start of it. I keep assuming that at some point it will get better, easier, but it never really seems to. The challenges change, of course, but it never really seems to get any less hard. And it is all mixed up as well by the fact that although sometimes you could cheerfully throw your precious moppets out of the window (or deny their existence at work), equally you would never give a second thought to literally tearing limb from limb anyone who dared to even think about causing them any sort of harm, or indeed was foolish enough to suggest that your cherubs were in any way not utterly perfect. For although they are monstrous hell beasts, they are YOUR monstrous hell beasts, and also the best thing that ever happened to you, and you love them so much that sometimes you think your heart will burst. Gina Ford never told us how to deal with all this!

Friday, 16 December

I have been meaning to organise a night out with Hannah and Sam and Katie for ages, and have never quite got around to it, and it is nearly Christmas and if we don’t do it NOW, then it will be January and everyone will be poor and depressed and on a diet/drying out/both, and so today I decided to just throw caution to the winds and after the hellishly long and soul-destroying Christmas Concert (perhaps my punishment for lying to work about being in the dentist was being tormented by endless tuneless singing until I longed for root-canal surgery as the less painful option), I cornered Sam and Katie in the playground after school.

‘Let’s go out tonight!’ I said brightly.

They both looked at me as if I had grown an extra head. ‘Tonight,’ they repeated blankly.

‘Yes, tonight!’ I chirped.

‘But Ellen, we haven’t planned it!’ said Katie in astonishment.

‘Where would we go?’ grumbled Sam, looking frightened.

‘The pub, of course, like we always do. We’d be being spontaneous! People do it all the time at work.’ I cried.

‘They are young people, though. And … and … the children?’ they whimpered. ‘Our precious moppets. What will become of them?’

‘I am a single father, remember, Ellen,’ pointed out Sam. ‘Robin is as much use as a marzipan dildo when it comes to actually stepping up to the mark and taking any responsibility for our children. Actually, he was about as much use as a marzipan dildo in bed too, if it comes to that,’ he added, with only a trace of bitterness.

‘It’s perfectly simple,’ I said. ‘Katie, Tim will be home tonight, won’t he, because you already told me that he was making dinner this evening, so he can make dinner AND put his daughters to bed, and Sam, Sophie and Toby can come to mine for a sleepover, and Simon can look after them. To be honest, it’s probably less work for him than his own children by themselves, as with Sophie and Toby there, the boys will just play mind-numbing computer games and the girls will do whatever it is eleven-year-old girls do that involves so much wittering like demented budgies, shrieking and glitter, rather than Peter and Jane just fighting like cat and dog like they will do with no distractions.’

‘But what will I wear?’ wailed Katie. ‘I haven’t planned. I’ll need to put on proper make-up and straighten my hair and I have not mentally prepared myself for that! I can’t just go out with no warning. What will I say to Tim?’

‘Has Tim never rung you to say he’s just popping out for a drink after work, or casually informed you that he’s going for a pint on a Saturday night?’ I demanded.

‘Well, yes, but –’

‘No buts! It’s exactly the same. Just text him, and tell him he’ll need to be home on time because you’re going out for a drink, because you are a grown-up and a real person and NOT JUST A MUMMY! CAN YOU DO THAT, KATIE? CAN I GET A HELL, YEAH?!’

‘Err, I suppose so. But I still don’t know what I’ll wear. I haven’t told the girls I’m going out, so they aren’t prepared. What if they’re upset?’

‘Katie, trust me. Stick them in front of a couple of extra episodes of Paw Patrol and they wouldn’t notice if you were dancing naked around the living room with your tits on fire, let alone if you’ve just popped out. Their father will take perfectly good care of them, perhaps not to your standard, and they will wear the wrong jammies to bed, but they will survive mismatching pyjamas for one night without lasting psychological damage,’ I barked.

‘OK,’ wavered Katie. ‘This feels weird, though. I don’t know if I like going on a night out without building up to it for at least two weeks. It’s not normal!’

‘It’s perfectly normal,’ I reminded her. ‘It’s what we did for years and years before we had children and convinced ourselves that we must slavishly devote every waking hour to their whims and needs. But actually we will be better people if we occasionally take some time for ourselves and do something spontaneous that reminds us that we are people too, not just parents.’

‘Yes!’ said Katie. ‘Yes, all right, I’m in!’

‘Hurray!’ I said. ‘Sam, what about you?’

‘I don’t know,’ whined Sam. ‘My favourite blue shirt is in the wash, and I feel a bit bloated and I still have last week’s Outlander to watch, and it might rain and –’

‘Sam!’ I said sternly. ‘Man the fuck up, wear a different shirt and come to the pub. I have never heard such feeble excuses in all my life!’

‘I’m just saying. OK, fine then, I’ll come, but you can buy the first round, for being such a bully and making us leave our comfort zone.’

‘I’m encouraging you to be spontaneous, FFS! What if you do meet someone wandering around Sainsbury’s and they ask you for a date and you’re all, “Ooooh, well, I dunno, I don’t like going out without any warning!” Consider this a practice run.’

‘I don’t think I’m going to meet anyone at Sainsbury’s anyway,’ said Sam gloomily. ‘All the single-looking men are skipping round with baskets full of asparagus and mussels and dinky little pots of artichoke hearts and expensive wine. I think they are put off by my trolley full of Petits Filous and frozen peas.’

‘Well, then. Maybe this is your chance to meet someone tonight. You’re not going to meet anyone sitting at home in your onesie perving over Jamie Fraser, and anyway, he hardly takes his top off this week AT ALL, so there was really no point to that episode.’

‘You’re right,’ said Sam. ‘What is the point of Outlander if Jamie doesn’t get naked at least once?’

I then had to ring Hannah and talk her through exactly the same thing, complete with the Outlander spoilers, and the reminder that as a doctor, Charlie was technically probably more qualified to look after her children than she was. But I talked her round in the end, and off to the pub we all went.

After the first half-hour, during which Katie texted Tim obsessively and Sam complained his shirt made him look fat and Hannah rang Charlie to make sure he had remembered to pay the wedding venue deposit, I suggested maybe a little round of Gibsons.

‘S’fucking brillant, bein’ nout!’ slurred Katie an hour later.

‘We’sh should do thish more!’ shouted Hannah.

‘I ashked for extra pickle nonions! No schnogging tonight!’ cried Sam. ‘Oooh, he looksh fit, hash anyone got Double Mint?’

Monday, 19 December

FML, FML, FML! Fuck my fucking life! I am hurtling with terrifying speed towards my Annual Christmas Meltdown, which usually takes place on Christmas Eve, but due to the summons from Yorkshire has had to be brought forward a little.

Simon is getting on my tits as I still haven’t forgiven him for the massive row about whether or not we needed a Christmas tree if we weren’t actually going to be here on Christmas Day, to which I replied in no uncertain terms that we most certainly fucking did, and he suggested that if we had to have a tree, maybe just a very small tree would do, and I shouted muchly about Scrooges and Grinches and WANTING A PROPER FUCKING TREE, while he muttered about mental wives and something about ‘a bit much’ and looked with suspicious longing at the trap door to the attic. We got the proper tree. Of course we got the proper tree, because I am a Tree Nazi, and is it even Christmas without a proper tree?

Simon is also being a smuggety smug smug fucker and reminding me every twenty minutes or so that he has already accomplished all the things on his Christmas To Do list, including wrapping the presents he was to buy. Twat. I bet he’s wrapped them badly. He keeps smirking at me and saying, ‘I don’t know why you always make such a fuss, darling, it’s really not that hard.’

In addition to this, I have had Jessica emailing me every twenty minutes, trying to persuade me that we should go halvers on a NutriBullet as a present for Mum and Geoffrey, by which she means she wants me to buy it, wrap it and then hand it to her to give to Mum while murmuring something about it being from both of us, but actually taking all the credit herself. I’m not sure why Jessica feels it so necessary to go halves on this bastarding NutriBullet, as she earns approximately eleventy billion pounds a year, so could easily afford to buy Mum and Geoffrey a dozen NutriBullets without blinking, but she has a bee in her bonnet. I’m assuming it’s either because she can’t be arsed full stop and so wants me to do the work, or she just can’t be arsed going into a shop and so wants me to use my Amazon Prime account so she can smugly continue to tell people how she has never bought anything from Amazon and only supports small, local, artisanal businesses. I don’t even know if Mum and Geoffrey WANT a NutriBullet – if I gave Mum one from me, I would almost certainly get a tart comment about did I realise that she did still have all her own teeth, but if St Jessica of Smugdom is involved then she will probably accept it graciously. I am also trying to buy thoughtful and meaningful gifts for people instead of just giving into temptation and throwing money at the problem now I am slightly more flush. That is Not the Point of Christmas.

Oh, and fuckety twatsticks! I have just realised while looking for NutriBullets on Amazon, that the few things I have managed to do, which is dispatching my mother-in-law’s present, might be a bit of a faux pas, in that I have sent the pug-obsessed Sylvia the same pug cushion that I sent her a couple of years ago. I thought it might cheer her up as a tribute to her late and much-lamented pug Napoleon Bonapug, who after many years of terrorising soft toys with his voracious sexual appetites, was sadly found cold in his basket one morning. There was a shocked-looking teddy bear in the basket beside him, which did give Sylvia some comfort that he had probably passed away while indulging in his favourite pastime. I suspect that while she might have taken one pug cushion as well-meaning, a second might be rubbing salt in the wound. Also, ever since Sylvia had a Damascene moment over the wonders of eBay, she has been increasingly difficult to buy anything for, as every day is Christmas for Sylvia – a constant convoy of exhausted couriers wends its way to her French retirement villa, while Sylvia quaffs pink sunshine wine on the terrace and opens each box with cries of glee, exclaiming, ‘I don’t even remember bidding for this, such fun! Michael, darling, look! Another one of these. Where shall we put this one?’ and Simon’s poor father mutters, ‘It’s not distressed, Sylvia. It’s a piece of tat is what is it is. Distressed is what I am over you wasting more money and no, you DIDN’T “win” it. YOU BOUGHT IT. How can I get it through to you that buying things on eBay costs MONEY? YOU HAVE NOT BEATEN THE SYSTEM NOR WON FUCK ALL. Oh, I don’t know. Put it in the spare room.’

I have at least ticked Natalia and Daddy off the list, with thoughtful, personal gifts of a scarf and a bottle of whisky. What on earth did people give each other before scarves? They are the ultimate default gift. You can even give them to men! Maybe I’ll get Mum a scarf as well, and tell Jessica where to shove her fucking NutriBullet.

What else do I need to do? Maybe I should make a list. OK:

Make List

Buy Presents

Wrap Presents

Clean House

Do All Laundry Ever So Children Do not Look Like Scruffy Urchins in Front of Parentals

Buy Christmas Jammies to Give Impression We Are a Functioning and Loving Family (Hmmm – would matching jammies for me and Simon make us look like twats or be utterly adorable? Could I even get Simon to wear Christmas jammies? Unlikely)

Sort Out Understairs Cupboard

Do Christmas Crafts with Children

Make Children Write Christmas Cards

I’m sure there’s a lot more. But at least I can cross off ‘Make List’ so I have achieved something already. Yay me! That has clearly earned me a glass of wine, not because I am a lush, but because it is FESTIVE! Simon has just looked over my shoulder at the list and enquired about the need to sort out the cupboard, do Christmas crafts and make the children write cards. This is because Simon is a Grinch and does not understand the true meaning of Christmas, which is to feel stressed and angry and resentful at everyone around you.

Friday, 23 December

We are in Yorkshire. We were up bright and early this morning, the car was packed, there had only been a very minor row, which simply ended in me shouting at Simon that I wanted a divorce, rather than that I would stab him as he slept, which, let’s face it, at Christmas time hardly even counts as a row. Peter and Jane were loaded into the car and plugged into their tablets, despite my cheery cries that we should play amusing car games all the way to Mum’s, which were met with groans of horror from the children and pleas for mercy from Simon.

‘But it will be FUN!’ I said brightly (as I looked up from sending one last email before we set off).

‘No, it won’t, Mum,’ said Jane. ‘You’ll make us play the Animal Game and then you’ll choose that weird animal that you always choose that none of us can ever remember and crow and call us stupid when we can’t get it.’

‘A mongoose is not weird. It isn’t MY fault if you can’t remember what a mongoose is.’

‘Or you’ll cheat and choose a rabbit, and then trick us by saying no when we ask if it is native to Britain,’ complained Peter.

‘That was a valuable lesson in both history and biology,’ I said indignantly. ‘That is what makes a rabbit such a good a choice. It throws people off the scent, because not many people know that it is in fact indigenous to North Africa and was introduced to Britain by the Romans. You’d know that too if you watched Horrible Histories.’

‘Muuuuuum! We KNOW you only watch Horrible Histories because you fancy that one from the Dick Turpin song. You are like sooooooo embarrassing!’ moaned Jane.

‘Mmmmm, Mathew Baynton …’ I murmured to myself, as Simon said, ‘Who?’ and I resolved I should probably delete my browsing history.

‘Well,’ I tried. ‘What about the Minister’s Cat?’

‘Only if it is Rude Word Minister’s Cat,’ said Jane hopefully.

‘Errr, no, not the Minister’s Cat then,’ I said hastily, as Jane is distressingly good at Rude Words Minister’s Cat and getting better all the time as her vocabulary increases. Well, her Rude Word vocabulary is increasing; I fear her ordinary one is not. Not that we would ever know, given that each sentence takes so long to get out, what with every second word still being bastarding ‘like’.

I gave up on the car games after that, as not even I had the strength for the fights over I-Spy that would result from Peter’s idiosyncratic grasp of spelling and his insistence that it was not cheating to pick something we had passed five miles back as his object.

As we were leaving the end of my driveway, Jessica rang.

‘Oh God, Ellen, I’m so glad I caught you!’ she babbled. She sounded absolutely distraught.

‘What’s happened, Jess? Is it one of the children? Is everyone OK?’

Jessica poured out an incoherent torrent of words, the only one of which I could make out was ‘Neil’.

‘Is Neil all right, Jessica? Has something happened to him? I can’t understand what you’re saying. You need to calm down, take a deep breath and repeat that slowly. Can you do that for me, Jessica? Stay on the line now, just talk to me,’ I said, feeling rather pleased with my cool head in a crisis and also how much I had learned about how to deal with emergencies over the telephone from watching medical and police dramas.

‘NEIL HAS GIVEN THE FORTNUM’S CHRISTMAS PUDDING TO AGNIESZKA! MY STUPID FUCKING HUSBAND HAS GIVEN MY FORTNUM AND MASON CHRISTMAS PUDDING TO THE CLEANER AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT AND SHE HAS FUCKED OFF BACK TO POLAND WITH IT! I TOLD him that the Aldi pudding was for her. I don’t know how he could have mixed them up, but he has, and I PROMISED Mum that I would bring the Christmas pudding and NOW I HAVE NO FUCKING PUDDING!’

‘Oh.’

‘OH. Is that all you can say? OH. I NEED ANOTHER CHRISTMAS PUDDING, ELLEN! You are going to have to stop at a Waitrose and get a Heston one. It won’t be the same, but it’s the best I can do!’

‘What? Why do I have stop at a Waitrose? Why can’t you stop? And how is me buying a pudding the best you can do? Why can’t you just bring the Aldi one?’

‘Because I’m DELEGATING, ELLEN! How can I be expected to deal with a supermarket on the 23rd of December in the fragile emotional state I am in? And anyway, we don’t pass any Waitroses, but I’m sure you do.’

‘We are going to the same place, Jessica! For the last 150 miles we will be going the same route. You will pass what I will pass. Just bring the Aldi pudding, it will be fine.’

‘I can’t bring Mum an Aldi Christmas pudding! Not when St Sarah of Smugness will be there twatting around with her organic artisanal cheeses and crackers handmade by fucking Hebridean magical DWARVES or something, I CAN’T bring a pudding from Aldi!’

‘I’m not doing it, Jessica. I’m just not. I don’t know why you just assume you can boss me around and act like you are somehow superior and everyone has to dance to your tune. There is no reason why you can’t go to Waitrose yourself. Is that clear? I am NOT going for you!’ I’m not sure I’d ever said no to Jessica before. It felt amazing!

‘How can you do this to me?’ whispered Jessica. ‘My own sister, refusing to help me save Christmas! How can you be so thoughtless, Ellen?’

‘I’m not being thoughtless. You are perfectly capable of going yourself.’

‘AM I, Ellen? AM I? I’m just trying to save Christmas, and excuse me if I ask for a little bit of help!’ Jessica paused to sniff bravely. ‘I cannot BELIEVE Neil has done this to me. No, Neil, you HAVE ruined Christmas. I’m NOT overreacting. Now kindly shut up, I’m on the phone to Ellen, trying to sort out your mess! Well, if Persephone is crying, GO AND SORT IT OUT! Sorry, Ellen, where was I? Oh, yes, you are very kindly going to pop into Waitrose on the way and get me another pudding. Thank you so much, you’re a star.’

‘No, Jess, I didn’t agree to that. I’m NOT stopping, I TOLD you –’

‘Anyway, must go, we’ve got a long journey. Thanks again, byeeeee!’ And with that, Jessica hung up. And that is why I don’t say no to Jessica because THERE IS NO FUCKING POINT!

‘What was that about?’ asked Simon.

‘Apparently, we have to go Waitrose on the way or Jessica is going to cut Neil’s bollocks off and serve them up instead of Christmas pudding,’ I informed him gloomily.

After five hours in the car, which was approximately twice as long as it should have taken and involved much sitting in traffic jams on the motorway while Simon shouted ‘GO ON YOU PRICK, MOVE! JUST MOTHERFUCKING DRIVE, YOU COCKSUCKER!’ at the car in front every time the car in front of them inched forward a couple of feet, and much ‘manoeuvring’ between lanes, as Simon is eternally convinced that all the other lanes are somehow ‘better’ than the lane he is currently in, and one stop at Waitrose, at which point I seriously considered not returning to the car at all but just keeping walking, and innumerable pleas to stop for a wee or complaints from my darling children that their sibling was looking at them, we were at Mum’s.

Mum and Geoffrey came out to meet us, as I snatched the iPads from Peter and Jane, hissing, ‘Stand up straight and for God’s sake just give them a hug and say hello nicely and try to make eye contact. Jane, shut the fuck up about your body autonomy and not having to hug people if you don’t want to, and just HUG THEM or I will never hear the bastarding end of it!’

‘Hello, darling,’ said Mum graciously, then, looking me up and down, added, ‘Gosh! You actually finally lost some weight. You look tired, though, darling, I’m not sure it suits you. Do you think this new job might be too much for you? I don’t know why you want to work full-time anyway.’

‘Hello, Mum,’ I said grimly, while thinking that this was a new record, even for Mum, to manage to get a dig in about my weight, my job and my general looks before I’d even set foot in the house. And I should have known that after years of nagging me to lose weight, she still wouldn’t be able to say anything nice and instead would manage to come up with something suitably passive–aggressive. ‘Is Jessica here yet?’

‘No, not yet, but I’m sure she won’t be long. Now, do my lovely grandchildren have a hug for me? Darlings?’

I reflected that at least she remembered that they are her grandchildren, after her slip-up about Smugfuck Sarah’s Spawn being the first grandchild for her and Geoffrey.

Just as Geoffrey and Simon were briskly shaking hands in a manly yet suitably emotionally repressed way, Jessica and Neil’s car pulled into the driveway, driven by Neil, who had the look of a man who if he heard the words ‘Christmas Pudding’ one more time would happily drive off a bridge. Poor Neil must have had a VERY long journey with an outraged Jessica yapping in his ear the whole time.

As more greetings were exchanged and bags unloaded, Jessica grabbed me and hissed, ‘Did you get it? Did you get the pudding?’

I dutifully handed her a Waitrose bag and she peered inside. ‘ELLEN! This isn’t the Heston pudding! It’s an Essentials pudding! How could you do this to me? I ask you to do one thing for me, ONE LITTLE THING, and you cock it up!’

‘Jessica,’ I said, quite calmly for someone who was entertaining violent fantasies about beating their only sister to death with a Waitrose Essentials Christmas Pudding. ‘That was the only sodding pudding to be had. It was the last one on the shelf. I have literally shed blood, sweat and tears for that fucking pudding, Jessica. I ran a gauntlet of stressed middle-class women intent on filling the boots of their Range Rovers with enough provisions to see them through Armageddon, and I fought an elderly woman in a twinset for that pudding, literally fought her. We wrestled in the aisle and she was surprisingly strong, so that pudding WILL HAVE TO DO!’

‘But what will Mum say?’ wailed Jessica.

‘Oh, FFS!’ I snapped. ‘Take it out of the box, wrap it in a hanky, tell Mum that you heard that the Fortnum’s pudding wasn’t any good this year, so you managed to get this amazing handmade artisanal pudding at a farmers’ market instead.’

‘Do you think that’ll be acceptable to her?’ quavered Jessica.

‘Oh, bloody hellfire!’ I said, at the end of my Christmas-pudding tether. ‘Tell her it’s the same pudding as Kirstie Allsopp gets, that’ll shut her up. She may even have the first ever Christmas pudding-related orgasm at the thought of having the same pudding as Posh Kirstie!’

Saturday, 24 December – Christmas Eve

Ah, there is nothing like the magical anticipation of Christmas Eve. The magic was slightly dimmed at breakfast this morning (all are bidden to breakfast at 8.30 a.m. sharp at Mum’s house. There is no hope of a lie-in, or slinging sugary cereal at hollow-eyed children sitting with glazed expressions in front of tablets – Mum even has a toast rack), when Persephone and Gulliver were happily babbling about how excited they were about Santa coming, and Jane, despite fervent entreaties from me to SAY NOTHING to Persephone and Gulliver about Santa, scornfully informed them that Santa didn’t exist. Persephone burst into tears and implored Jane to admit she was lying, while I frantically waggled my eyebrows and kicked Jane under the table, only to have Peter join in too.

‘Honestly, Persephone,’ he said, shaking his head in sorrowful disbelief. ‘You’re eleven, like Jane! I’m only nine and I know that there is no Santa Claus!’

‘It’s not true, it’s not true,’ wept Persephone and Gulliver (Jessica was out of the room, doubtless having another Pudding Crisis and berating Neil about something).

‘Honestly, Ellen,’ sighed Mum. ‘Can’t you keep those children under control for one moment? It’s Christmas Eve, hysterical children are not part of my plan for today!’

‘I’m trying, Mum!’ I said through gritted teeth, as Jessica swept back into the room, surveyed her weeping offspring in dismay and said, ‘Oh, poppets! What on earth is wrong?’

‘Peter and Jane say Santa doesn’t exist!’ sobbed Persephone.

‘They say it’s you and Daddy who bring the presents,’ gulped Gulliver.

‘Oh no, darlings, they’re just pulling your leg,’ said Jessica firmly.

‘Auntie Jessica, it’s wrong to lie,’ said Jane firmly. ‘We’re going to church tomorrow, and if there is a God, then he could smite you for lying!’

‘Except there isn’t a God,’ put in Peter. ‘He’s made up, just like Santa!’

Persephone and Gulliver howled harder.

Sarah tutted and stroked her bump smugly. ‘Of course, my baby will be brought up to respect all faiths, and acknowledge people’s beliefs,’ she announced, glaring at my agnostic daughter and atheist son, who were still taunting their weeping cousins about the inexorable black void of nothing that exists after death, and also the lack of Santa, which the cousins seemed to be taking rather harder.

I’m somewhat concerned by Sarah’s presence here, actually – when Mum told me Sarah was expecting, I hadn’t realised she would be fit to pop. It was rather a shock when she waddled in last night and I asked her when she was due, and she said the 5th of January. When I said I hoped she had brought her hospital bag and notes with her, just in case, I was loftily informed that she didn’t need a hospital bag, as she was having a home birth, and when I enquired about the wisdom therefore of being away from home so close to her due date, she gave me a patronising look and informed me that EVERYONE knows that first babies are ALWAYS late. I considered pointing out to her that Jane had in fact been three weeks early, to our surprise (we were at a wedding when my waters broke and Simon was hammered, so it took rather a while to impress the gravity of the situation upon him. I still haven’t forgiven him for the epic hangover he suffered during the delivery, which led to the midwives spending more time fussing over him and bringing him coffee than they did looking after ME, the one who had an actual BABY coming out of her bits. AND he ate my toast afterwards because I was throwing up. Bastard), but by then Sarah had already moved on to explain hypnobirthing me, and to describe how she is totally against the overuse of episiotomies by the medical profession, and how she has been massaging organic coconut oil into her perineum to prepare for birth, but there won’t be any danger of tearing anyway, as she will simply be ‘breathing the baby out naturally’. She asked if I had had an episiotomy, and when I admitted that I had, said, ‘Yes, I thought so. You probably had drugs too. I am planning on completely drug-free, 100 per cent organic birth, just as nature intends. It’s quite usual for women to orgasm during labour, you know, if you do it right, and listen to your body.’ Simon choked on a Brazil nut at the mention of Sarah’s perineum and downed an entire glass of red at the talk of orgasmic births, and I decided that she would learn the hard way soon enough, and spent the rest of the evening muttering darkly to Jessica about how much we hate sodding Sarah. I will say this for her: she does provide something for Jessica and me to bond over. Sadly, however, after this morning’s revelations, even chuntering together over Smug Sarah, the First Pregnant Person Ever, might not be enough to make Jessica forgive me for my precious moppets ruining the Magic of Christmas for her darlings.

The rest of Christmas Eve was mainly spent peeling potatoes (Sarah being excused such menial tasks due to The Baby, and Jessica being occupied by attempting to convince Persephone and Gulliver that their entire childhoods hadn’t been a lie, and obviously in Mum’s world no men could be capable of peeling spuds, and apparently I was just making a scene when I said I actually just needed to do a couple of hours work before I started on the potatoes – nothing is more important than the potatoes apparently), while Mum told me how I was doing it all wrong and taking off far too much potato with the skin, and didn’t I know that was where all the goodness was (‘Yes, Mum, because you’ve literally told me that every single time I have peeled a potato since I was twelve, yet somehow neither I nor my family has yet died from fucking malnutrition’). Why the fuck do we need so many potatoes at Christmas anyway?

Peter and Jane did not help matters with Persephone and Gulliver’s emotional trauma when they discovered that every time their cousins had calmed down, the hysterics could be restarted by shouting, ‘I DON’T BELIEVE IN FAIRIES! THAT’S ANOTHER ONE DEAD, HA!’ Although this was obviously extremely cruel and unkind of my beloved children, there was a part of me that agreed with them that Persephone and Gulliver should really just man up and stop being such drips.

While Mum was having a meltdown over the parsnips, I abandoned the sacks of spuds to try to do a little bit of work, as the Big Deadline is looming and I don’t want everything to be a last-minute rush. I was hiding in our bedroom (separate beds, obvs. Mum does not encourage that sort of thing in anyone), when Simon came in. I looked up in exasperation.

‘I brought you a glass of wine,’ he whispered conspiratorially. ‘And I finished the potatoes for you. Your mum had moved on from the parsnip crisis and was busy insisting that Geoffrey go back out to the shops because she had just realised that she didn’t have any shallots and apparently ordinary onions wouldn’t do, so she didn’t even notice. So you can claim all the glory!’

Sometimes, just sometimes, I remember why I married Simon. I put down my laptop and suggested we thwarted my mother’s attempts at moral rectitude and put some of that practice we had of doing that sort of thing in single beds as students to good use.

‘Christ,’ said Simon. ‘If I’d known all it took was peeling some spuds, I’d have bought shares in King Edwards years ago!’

Sunday, 25 December – Christmas Day

The Family Festive Fun rolls on apace. I had somehow forgotten that Mum had adopted Geoffrey’s family’s frankly hideous tradition of not opening presents until after Christmas morning church, which was a shock to my own consumerist fiends as they descended with shrieks of glee on the mountains of parcels under the tree, only to be shooed away with stern admonishments by Mum and Geoffrey.

Church was … reasonably uneventful. We are not a church-going family, apart from when we are at Mum’s for Christmas, so there was much grumbling and ‘But WHYing’ from the children (and Simon), especially from Peter. Since he decided to be a full-on, card-carrying atheist, he feels it is his duty to bring enlightenment to the opiated masses and so had to be repeatedly kicked on the ankle to stop him from shouting, ‘There is no God, you know!’ during the service, as Causing a Scene in Church would, in Mum’s eyes, be even worse than ruining his cousins’ lives with the fairy-killing and Santa-denying, as the vicar might judge her and adversely affect her prime spot on the flower-arranging rota.

I quite like a Christmas church visit, though, especially when it is to a pretty little country church, like in Mum and Geoffrey’s village, although I am puerile and childish and sniggered when Mary asked how she should have a child for she was a virgin and the angel replied that the Holy Ghost would come on her, but I do like belting out a carol or two. It was unfortunate that I was a little carried away by ‘Angels from the Realms of Glory’ and didn’t notice Peter carving ‘bum’ into the pew in front with the penknife I had thought was such a splendid Boy’s Own gift for his stocking (Jane got one too, because Equality, even though I am always dubious about the wisdom of allowing Jane free rein to run amok with sharp objects), but today’s graffiti is tomorrow’s archaeology (or something), and in years to come it will doubtless just add to the charm of the church.

All in all, everything was going relatively well, apart from Mum accusing me of adding too much goose fat to the roast potatoes and making them greasy (there is no such thing as ‘too much goose fat’ when it comes to roast potatoes) and Sarah poking every single dish suspiciously before asking with a pained expression if it was suitable for her to eat when pregnant.

As we approached the Christmas pudding, and Jessica began to twitch for fear her duplicity would be discovered, Sarah evidently decided that insufficient attention was being paid to her, and she clutched her belly with a dramatic moan.

‘Oh God, darling!’ wailed Piers. ‘What is it?’

‘Arrrrghhhhh!’ groaned Sarah.

‘I TOLD you there was too much goose fat on those potatoes, Ellen,’ said Mum crossly. ‘You’ve given her indigestion.’

‘Oooohhh, owwwww! Oh, I think I’m having contractions!’ gasped Sarah.

‘Oh no, darling!’ shrieked Piers. ‘The baby can’t be coming yet. I haven’t downloaded your birth meditation podcasts! There’s no birthing pool here!’

‘OWWWWWWW!’ howled Sarah. ‘What are we going to do? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? THE BABY IS COMING!’

‘Well, you’ll have to go to the hospital, obviously,’ said Mum.

‘But I want a home birth,’ insisted Sarah.

‘You can’t have a home birth here,’ said Mum in horror. ‘Where would you have it?’

‘I could give birth in the drawing room,’ panted Sarah, who was now standing up and rocking back and forth while clutching the sideboard dramatically.

‘You can’t give birth in there. I’ve just had it decorated,’ replied Mum indignantly. ‘Oh God, and my Egyptian cotton sheets upstairs. You can’t have the baby here, you must go to a hospital.’

‘OOOOHHHHHHHHH! OHHHHHH! Piers! Piers, you are meant to be massaging my back and helping me BREATHE!’ screamed Sarah, as she doubled up over the sideboard. Geoffrey stood up and gently led his daughter away from the sideboard and gave her a chair to hold on to instead, while murmuring, ‘Do you mind, darling? Only it’s Chippendale, you know …’

‘I said she should have brought her hospital bag,’ I announced smugly to no one in particular. ‘I knew something like this would happen, I just knew it!’

Sarah gave one more violent scream and shrieked, ‘It’s coming! Oh God, it’s coming!’ and let out the most enormous fart I have ever heard in my life. The sonic boom seemed to echo around the ornate cornicing of the dining room for some time, while we all sat in a shocked silence.

‘Oh!’ said Sarah straightening up. ‘Oh, that’s better!’

Mum, who was going off the Sainted Sarah by the minute, did her very best impression of a cat’s bum with her mouth. Persephone and Gulliver, who were by now so shocked by life that they could not have been any more wide-eyed or horrified if they tried, whimpered something to Jessica, who muttered that she would explain where babies came from later. Jane helpfully intervened, and said she had seen the DVD at school and could explain for Jessica, if she wanted. She was brandishing her new knife at this point, and added something about how when the baby is born, they cut bits off it, and Persephone and Gulliver whimpered further as Jessica hastily declined their offer.

‘Did Aunty Sarah just FART the baby out?’ asked Peter in fascination. ‘There was no farting in the DVD I saw. It came out the lady’s hairy vagina. Doesn’t Aunty Sarah have a hairy vagina? Is that why she is farting the baby out?’

Geoffrey, a man who had clearly never had vaginas, hairy or otherwise, discussed at his dinner table before, looked like we might have exchanged one medical emergency for another as he teetered on the brink of a heart attack. He grabbed a bottle of whisky from the sideboard and suggested Simon joined him in the study. Simon didn’t need asking twice.

‘Shall I get the Christmas pudding?’ I said brightly. ‘Custard or brandy butter?’

Tuesday, 27 December

Today started quite well, with everyone being nice to each other in the blissful knowledge that the end was in sight. Jessica and Neil left this morning, having specifically told me they were staying until the 28th, which was the only reason I’d agreed to stay until the 28th too, so Mum couldn’t emotionally blackmail me about how at least one of her children likes to spend time with her, but somehow the cow managed to renege and escaped this morning.

Despite the departure of Jessica and family, and the fact that we were leaving tomorrow, Mum decided to have a massive meltdown after lunch because she was down to her last six pints of milk, there were only four loaves left in the freezer and she only had a dozen eggs – and therefore STARVATION WAS IMMINENT! As it had started snowing last night, and had continued to snow all day, Mum declared that the village shop would be bare, as any deliveries they may have had today would have been stripped by locust-like marauding pensioners (Mum seems to overlook the fact that she is also a pensioner by insisting it is different because she and Geoffrey always spent their winter-fuel allowance on wine, until the government so cruelly took it away from them). Therefore, insisted Mum, nothing would do, but that someone should set forth to go to the nearest supermarket fifteen miles away to buy provisions.

Piers, who truth be told was looking rather drained by Sarah constantly barking commands at him, volunteered for this task, claiming that their supplies of coconut oil were running rather low (good God, what sort of acreage does Sarah’s perineum cover if she has managed to go through an entire jar of it since arriving?), but I suspect he just fancied an hour’s peace and quiet.

We duly waved him off, with Mum remarking anxiously that their lane was looking really rather difficult with all the snow and she did hope we would be able to get out tomorrow to go home. Icy dread seizing my heart at the thought of being snowed in with Mum and Geoffrey (and eleventy billion pints of milk, forty loaves, five dozen eggs and a vat of coconut oil, after Piers’s Mercy Dash). I airily announced that we would be FINE, for I had a 4x4 and thus nothing could impede our escape.

Peter and Jane complained that they were BORED with snow, and there was nothing to do now that their new favourite pastime of tormenting their cousins had been taken from them, and Mum announced briskly that only boring people got bored and suggested a variety of mundane tasks to occupy them, before they sidled off muttering that they thought they could probably find something to do. Mum smirked at me smugly and said, ‘It’s just a matter of knowing how to handle them, darling!’

‘Mum, you do know they will just have sneaked off to find some sort of screen to slump in front of, don’t you?’ I pointed out. ‘They haven’t gone to write imaginative stories or poetry or perform a play.’

‘Well,’ huffed Mum. ‘They might have.’

It was actually rather a lovely afternoon. The snow continued to fall softly, the fire crackled and the house was quiet for the first time in days. I curled up on the window seat to indulge myself with my ancient, battered copy of Ballet Shoes, having decided that the children hadn’t really had that much screen time in the last few days, so a little bit wouldn’t hurt, while I dreamt of my marvellous career on the stage that never was (I know we are all supposed to want to be cool tomboy Petrova, but I always had a hankering to be spoilt brat Posy, prancing around en pointe). Simon was pottering around somewhere, Geoffrey had vanished to his study, and Sarah had beached herself in prime position on the sofa in front of the fire, while Mum flicked through Tatler, pretending she knew people in the Bystander section.

As dusk fell, Sarah lifted her head and plaintively suggested that it would be rather lovely if someone could bring her a cup of hot water and lemon juice. Mum, who still hadn’t forgiven Sarah for destroying her elegant Christmas dinner tableau with the Fart of Doom, ignored her. Sarah whimpered again, and I rather unkindly said, ‘You know, Sarah, it’s not actually good for you to loll about this much at this stage in pregnancy. You could get a thrombosis. It’s much more natural to move about and stay active! A gentle walk to the kitchen to make your own drink would be much better for you.’

‘But I’m pregnant,’ whined Sarah. ‘I can’t believe no one will fetch me a hot drink in my condition. Where is Piers? Where is Daddy?’

When no further sympathy or offers of help were forthcoming, Sarah heaved herself to her feet, grumbling all the while, and then, as she stood up, there was a loud splashing noise, as a great gout of liquid gushed over the rug.

Mum, who had steadfastly pretended not to hear any of this exchange, looked up at this point and shrieked, ‘My AUBUSSON! WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED?’

Sarah, who was standing in the puddle looking quite horrified said, ‘I didn’t piss myself. Really I didn’t.’

‘Holy fuck, Sarah!’ I said. ‘Your waters have broken!’

‘What?’ said Sarah. ‘But they can’t have. I mean, there was no warning. Everyone said. They said I would know when the baby was coming, they said I had to listen to my body, and I have been listening and it NEVER FUCKING SAID ANYTHING. AND NOW THE BABY IS COMING, BUT IT IS MEANT TO BE LATE, AND THE BASTARDS SAID THAT TOO, THAT FIRST BABIES ARE ALWAYS LATE, AND PIERS ISN’T HERE, HE IS LOST IN THE SNOW, AND HE WILL PROBABLY DIE OUT THERE BEFORE HE EVEN GETS TO MEET HIS BABY AND I WILL BE A SINGLE MOTHER, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!’

I reluctantly laid aside Ballet Shoes, abandoning Pauline and Petrova mid-audition for A Midsummer’s Night Dream, and sprang into action. I have watched every episode of Call the Midwife, including the frankly terrifying Christmas Special where ex-nun Shelagh seduced Dr Turner in her drip-dry nylon negligee, and I felt confident I could deal with this situation.

‘Don’t worry, Sarah,’ I said cheerfully (I knew from Call the Midwife that it was important to maintain a sunny façade to keep the mother calm – but then again, it was also important to administer an enema. I decided to stick with the cheerfulness and not think about the enema). ‘Babies take ages to come. You’ll be OK. Now, remember to breathe. Piers will be here soon, there were probably just queues to deal with. Or maybe it took a while to find the coconut oil. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.’ I patted her hand reassuringly.

‘OH MY GOD, WHAT AM I GOING TO DOOOOOOO?’ screamed Sarah. She was clearly hysterical. I wondered whether I should slap her. In fairness, I have been longing to slap Sarah for years, and I would probably never have a better opportunity, but I suspected slapping women in labour, however irritating and screechy they are, is frowned upon, so I reluctantly decided against it, and patted her hand again and made what I hoped were Soothing Noises.

Sarah collapsed heavily back onto the sofa, still wailing, at which point Mum decided to provide a Greek chorus as she howled, ‘Oh GOD, NO, NO! Ellen, DO something! Get her off the sofa! OFF! I’ve just had it upholstered in Laura Ashley. The cushions are their Summer Palace fabric, it’s discontinued now. She’s already wrecked the Aubusson, she’s not ruining my sofa as well!’

‘Mum, she’s in labour,’ I protested. ‘I really don’t think that your sofa is the main thing we should be worrying about right now! She needs to be warm and comfortable and reassured. I don’t think you’re helping.’

‘The Summer Palace was £36 a metre! What part of “it’s discontinued” don’t you understand, Ellen?’ hissed Mum menacingly. I was a bit scared.

‘Look, just call an ambulance or something, Mum!’

‘But what are we going to do with her until it gets here?’ fretted Mum.

‘I AM here!’ pointed out Sarah

‘The garage?’ tried Mum hopefully. ‘I mean, Geoffrey’s Jag’s in there, but I’ve never much liked it anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if she scratches the paintwork.’

‘MUM!’ I said, shocked by her devotion to home furnishings in the face of the Miracle of Life taking place in front of her. ‘We can’t put her in the garage!’

‘Why not?’ said Mum. ‘I mean, really, a garage is a modern version of a stable. It would be rather apt. Quite festive, really.’

‘OOOOHHHHHHH!’ groaned Sarah. ‘Could someone PLEASE just phone Piers and tell him he needs to get back here NOW?’

‘Mum, GO and call an ambulance, and then go and call Piers.’

‘Right,’ I said briskly, turning to Sarah. ‘It’s all going to be all right, Sarah. You’ve absolutely nothing to worry about. The baby won’t be here for ages, and I won’t let Mum put you in the garage. The Summer Palace cushions will just have to take their chances, but the ambulance will be here shortly anyway. Mum, WHY are you still here? GO and ring an ambulance, and Piers. And let Sarah speak to Piers when you get hold of him. And … and … then put some water on to boil. And get towels! Lots of towels!’

‘Not my White Company ones, though,’ said Mum mutinously. ‘Maybe the old ones I use to dry the cats after their bath.’

‘Mum!’ I snapped. ‘She’s having a fucking baby! GO and make the calls, and stop worrying about your fucking towels! You can’t give her the cat towels. The longer you leave it before you call that ambulance, the more chance there is of her giving birth on your fucking cushions!’

Mum stomped out, still muttering darkly, and I turned my attention back to Sarah, who was howling that she was having another contraction.

‘Maybe you should breathe through it?’ I said brightly (I was really very impressed with how well I was coping with a Childbirth Crisis). ‘Visualise something lovely. Like a tropical beach! And breathe yourself onto it. How’s that orgasm coming on?’

‘Shut the fuck up, Ellen!’ spat Sarah. ‘This hurts like a fucking BITCH! BREATHING ISN’T FUCKING HELPING! I WANT DRUGS!’

‘No, you don’t,’ I said soothingly. ‘Remember, you are having a natural birth, you have practised all your hypnobirthing, and you are very against drugs and medical intervention. You can just breathe instead. You said that childbirth only hurts because we are conditioned to think it hurts, and if we simply believe otherwise, we will have a positive and empowering birth experience. Would you like to hold my hand?’

‘FUCK THAT SHIT!’ was Sarah’s response, as she gripped my hand really much harder than I was sure was necessary. ‘I have a baby coming out my FUCKING FANNY! What fucking IDIOT said it WOULDN’T HURT?’

‘Well, you did? Come on, Sarah, remember to breathe,’ I said helpfully, as the contraction passed and Sarah thankfully let go of my hand. I wondered if it would be unsupportive if I didn’t let her hold it again, as that had been really very painful. She has quite a grip – probably something to do with being captain of the tennis team at school. It rather makes one feel for Piers, though.

‘AARRRRGHHHHHH!’ wailed Sarah. ‘Shut up about fucking breathing. Did breathing help when you were giving birth?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’s just what people say, when you’re in labour. Like you’d forget to breathe! I do vaguely remember shouting that at a midwife, actually, yelling that I was fucking breathing, that I was hardly going to start holding my bastarding breath just to spite her, was I? She wasn’t very impressed, as I recall, but then again I was smacked off my tits on all the drugs, so what do I know? Maybe people do forget to breathe. Maybe all the panting does help. It all gets a bit hazy afterwards, you sort of forget what happens, apparently it’s nature’s way –’

‘Oh God, stop wittering, Ellen, I’M HAVING ANOTHER ONE AND DON’T FUCKING TELL ME TO BREATHE. I WANT THE DRUGS! I WANT ALL THE DRUGS LIKE YOU HAD, IT’S NOT FAIR!!’

It occurred to me that Sarah’s contractions seemed to be quite close together. I was trying to remember how far apart contractions should be before things start getting serious when Mum came back in, followed by Geoffrey. She did not look terribly happy.

‘Piers isn’t answering his phone,’ she said anxiously.

‘OH GOD, HE IS DEAD IN A SNOWDRIFT!’ wept Sarah. ‘ARRRGHHHHH! AND I’M HAVING ANOTHER CONTRACTION!!’

‘Darling, must you make that ghastly noise?’ enquired Geoffrey disapprovingly.

‘Ellen, why is she still on the sofa? I told you to get her off the sofa!’ complained Mum.

‘AAAAARRGGGGHHHHHHHH! I DON’T WANT TO BE A WIDOW, BRINGING UP MY ORPHAN CHILD ALONE!’ panted Sarah.

‘Snow will have affected the signal, probably,’ said Geoffrey knowingly.

‘Did you call the ambulance, Mum?’ I said.

‘Not yet, I was trying to get Piers!’ said Mum indignantly.

‘MUM, CALL THE AMBULANCE NOW. IT’S A BIT MORE IMPORTANT THAN PIERS!’

Mum wandered off again.

Jane chose that point to appear, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Simon since lunch.

‘Is Aunty Sarah farting the baby out again?’ said Jane with great interest. ‘Can I stay and watch? We didn’t do farting the baby out when we watched the DVD at school, only the hairy vagina way.’

I made a mental note to have an Important Conversation with Jane about the gaps in her sex education.

‘Maybe you could go and find Daddy for me, darling?’ I suggested, as Jane huffed out, muttering that it wasn’t fair, she was never allowed to do anything good.

‘ANOTHER ONE! ANOTHER ONE! WHERE’S THE AMBULANCE? OH FUCK, OH FUCK, I THINK I NEED TO PUSH!’ screeched Sarah, who was now prone on Mum’s precious sofa, with her legs akimbo.

‘You can’t possibly need to push yet, Sarah!’ I said in a panic. ‘You’ve hardly been in labour for any time at all! Oh God, just DON’T PUSH!’

‘I don’t think there’s any need for such language, young lady!’ said Geoffrey reprovingly to Sarah, who was still swearing like a trooper.

‘GO FUCK YOURSELF, DADDY!’ shouted Sarah. ‘YOU PUSH A WATERMELON OUT YOUR FUCKING ARSEHOLE, AND THEN YOU CAN TELL ME THERE’S NO NEED FOR LANGUAGE LIKE THAT!’

Mum skidded back into the room in a panic. ‘They don’t know how long it will take to get an ambulance here as they’re all out or are stuck in the snow. They’ve some 4x4s with paramedics but they’re all at emergencies and they say that this isn’t classified as an emergency yet. They want to know how far apart her contractions are.’

Fuck. Timing the contractions. I knew there was something I should have been doing.

‘I don’t know! I don’t know!’ wailed Mum into the phone. ‘Oh GOD, Ellen, you talk to them!’ and she thrust the phone at me.

‘Right,’ said the nice ambulance lady soothingly. ‘So can I just check – first baby? And she’s thirty-nine. And no previous complications, blood pressure all been all right, etc.? And the baby is just a few days early?’

I babbled hopelessly that I thought so, as far as I knew, and she had wanted a home birth anyway, so I assumed there were no problems with the pregnancy.

‘OK, do you think you could bring her in yourself?’

‘Me?’ I said, slightly dumbstruck.

‘At the moment, if you were able to bring her in, that would be the quickest way to get her to hospital. Right now, with the weather conditions, I can’t say for sure how long it’s going to take to get an ambulance out to you. Do you have a 4x4?’

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

‘Right, then the best thing is probably to pop off to the hospital yourselves and get her checked over. If things start moving faster while you’re on your way, ring us back and we’ll reassess.’

I hung up the phone, and whimpered.

Mum was peering out the window. ‘The snow’s getting worse,’ she said, ‘and her contractions are very close together. WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?’

‘FOR FUCK’S SAKE, I AM HAVING A BAAAAYBEEEEE!’ screamed Sarah.

I took a deep breath and shouted, ‘WILL EVERYBODY JUST CALM THE FUCK DOWN!’

‘Is Aunty Sarah going to get her hairy vagina out?’ said a fascinated Peter, having sneaked in without me noticing.

‘No! Get out! GO AND FIND YOUR FATHER!’ I shrieked. ‘And Mum, go and ring the hospital and tell them we’re bringing Sarah in now.’

Simon wandered in, followed by Mum, who was wittering away to someone on the phone and interjected to say, ‘I didn’t know what hospital to ring, so I rang our health centre, but there was no answer, so I rang Julie Carmichael, who used to be the receptionist before she retired, and Julie says how many centimetres might she be dilated, before she can say whether it’s time to go to hospital.’

‘WHAT?’ I said in disbelief.

‘How many centimetres dilated?’ repeated Mum.

‘Tell Julie Carmichael to FUCK OFF!’ I yelled. ‘It’s nothing to do with her. Just ring the nearest hospital with a FUCKING MATERNITY UNIT!’

‘But I don’t know where has a maternity unit, darling. Why on earth would I? No, Julie, I’m still here. They don’t know how many centimetres she’s dilated. I know. Oh, absolutely.’

‘Shall I google it, Mummy?’ said Jane, who had sneaked back in.

‘Yes, Jane, that would be very helpful,’ I said. Finally, someone with a bit of common sense.

‘Are you fit to drive?’ I asked Simon.

‘Me? Fuck no, I’ve been on the red since lunch!’ he replied jovially, waving his glass at me to demonstrate his point.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ I said despairingly, looking round at Mum, who was still on the phone, wittering to Julie Carmichael about cat towels and the Summer Palace sofa cushions, Geoffrey hurrumphing disapprovingly about everyone making such a scene, and a thoroughly pissed-up Simon. Peter and Jane were peering hopefully round the drawing-room door, and Sarah was still panting about pushing.

‘Right,’ said Jane cheerfully. ‘I’ve found the nearest maternity unit, Mummy, and the hospital has an A&E too. I’ve put the directions into your phone for you.’

‘Jane, I love you!’ I said, profoundly grateful that at least one person was able to keep their head in an emergency.

‘OK,’ I said, hoping I sounded more confident that I felt. ‘Mum, get OFF the phone, you’ll need to quickly make a hospital bag for her. Get some clean jammies, any pads you might have, Tena Ladies will do –’

‘I do not wear Tena Ladies,’ interrupted Mum with indignation.

‘Whatever! Just get some jammies then, and some blankets and towels – NOT the fucking cat towels – and anything else that might look useful. Oh, and your gravy jug.’

‘My gravy jug,’ said Mum in confusion. ‘What does she need my gravy jug for?’

‘For pouring water over down there for when she has a wee afterwards!’ I explained. ‘It makes it much less painful!’

‘But it’s from Lakeland!’ wailed Mum, while Geoffrey went so puce I did fear he might actually be having a heart attack. ‘Can’t she use something else? Maybe the little watering can I use for the house plants?’

‘JUST GET THE GRAVY JUG!’ I barked, fearing we did not have time to discuss the subject. ‘Simon, you will have to come with me.’

‘Me? Why me?’ complained Simon.

‘In case she gives birth on the way. Someone will need to, I dunno, catch the baby, while I’m driving. And believe it or not, out of the LIMITED choices currently available, you are probably the best person to do that!’

I did consider taking Jane with me instead of Simon, as I suspected she might be more use, but I also feared that having to deliver a baby at the tender age of eleven might scar her for life. Simon had already (somewhat unwillingly) witnessed the Miracle of Childbirth via my own fanny, and therefore the damage was done with regard to him.

Eventually, amid much huffing and puffing and screaming and wailing (actually that was just Mum about her gravy jug), we got poor Sarah loaded into the back of my car, sprawled inelegantly among the dog hair and discarded McDonald’s wrappers and crisps packets. Simon was unceremoniously shoved in the back too, where he cowered pitifully in the furthest possible corner from Sarah, and we set off, Sarah wailing periodically that she really thought she might have to push now, and Simon and me bellowing back, ‘DO NOT PUSH! WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT PUSH!’ as I drove hell for leather down snowy lanes, shouting abuse at the Google Maps lady, who was being particularly sanctimonious.

Thankfully, Sarah managed to not give birth in the car, though it is very distracting trying to drive with someone screaming blue murder in your ear all the way, but fortunately this is a talent I mastered many years ago due to Peter and Jane also liking to screech like demented banshees during any journey, and we arrived at the hospital. I came to an impressive though extremely illegal Dukes of Hazzard-style stop in an ambulance bay and hastily unloaded Sarah and Simon, before parking somewhere less clampable.

Fortunately, the car park wasn’t busy, so I was able to abandon the car and tear back into the hospital while Sarah and Simon were still at reception trying to explain what was going on – or rather, Sarah was clutching her stomach and sobbing something about her orphan child was coming, while Simon looked frightened and gestured vaguely in Sarah’s direction while mumbling something about ‘babies’.

‘And are you her partner?’ enquired the confused midwife on the desk.

‘No!’ said Simon vehemently.

‘Oh. So … are you the partner?’ she asked me.

‘What?’ I said.

‘It’s OK. We don’t judge. We see lots of modern relationships here,’ said the midwife kindly.

‘No, I mean, it’s not that I have a problem with same-sex relationships,’ I gabbled. ‘But she’s my stepsister. And he’s my husband. You see?’

‘Mmmm,’ said the midwife, looking rather more judgemental. ‘Yes, that is a little more unusual. But like I said, we’re not here to judge.’

‘It’s not his baby either! We just brought her in because her husband had to go and buy milk because my mother is a batshit-mental dairy Nazi, and so someone had to drive her here, and maybe we could just stop talking now and you know, get the baby out?’

‘We don’t condone the use of terms like “batshit-mental”, actually,’ said the midwife primly.

‘Well, you haven’t met my fucking mother!’ I hissed, as Sarah gave another dramatic groan and heave, and the midwife remembered what she was actually supposed to be doing.

Ten minutes later, Sarah was in the labour suite with a lovely midwife, who announced that she was nine centimetres dilated and the baby would be crowning shortly. I had attempted to leave once Sarah was handed over to the midwives, but she had clutched at me anxiously and begged me to stay with her, and since all the midwives were looking at me, and given that she was on her own and having her first baby, it would have been churlish to say, ‘But Sarah, we’ve never exactly got on before today. Why would I want to watch you push a baby out?’ So there wasn’t much else I could do apart from say, ‘Of course I will stay. No problem!’

There was a small unfortunateness when the nice midwife asked if Mummy would like some gas and air, and I shouted, ‘Oh God, yes PLEASE! I love gas and air. It is exactly like being pissed, and today has been very stressful, so that would be fabulous!’ The midwife frostily informed me that she had been referring to Sarah as being the one in need of pain relief and not me.

Much pushing and groaning and swearing ensued, which led me to look much more kindly on Simon’s preferred delivery-room position of cowering in a corner, as I did pretty much the same once it had been established that no one was going to let me have a go on the gas and air, and after what seemed like an eternity, but according to the clock was only about twenty minutes, Sarah popped out a bouncing baby girl, without the need for an episiotomy, so all that coconut oil was not in vain at least.

‘Would you like to cut the cord?’ the midwife asked me brightly. I recoiled further into my corner. I had no wish at all to go Down There. Blurry though my own memories of giving birth are, I do recall Simon reacting with similar horror when the midwife asked him if he wanted to cut the cord when Jane was born. Rather alarmingly, she had then asked me if I wanted to cut the cord myself. Apparently replying ‘I’s totally off my own face on the luffly druggies jus’ now. I think sharp things iss bad idea!’ was not good form, and I felt quite judged.

Sarah was sitting up and cuddling the baby, with that slightly stunned but glowing look that some women seem to get after giving birth (not me, I looked sweaty and knackered, but I did manage the stunned part at least), and I had been summonsed from my corner to inspect the new arrival, who I pronounced to be ‘gorgeous’ (she wasn’t – she looked like an angry prune, much like all newborns, but you are not allowed to say that), and I was eying up Sarah’s tea and toast, as she didn’t seem very interested in them, when Piers finally burst into the room, having been delayed by going round three supermarkets to get organic skimmed milk for Mum, and then when Mum finally got hold of him, having to go the long way round due to an Audi skidding and blocking the road.

‘Oh!’ said the midwife, who was still slightly confused by the family set-up. ‘Is this one the daddy?’

Piers only had eyes for Sarah and his baby, though.

‘Yes!’ I said with relief, glad at not having to launch into more complex explanations. But as I attempted to sidle out of the room, Sarah, still glowing (annoyingly), turned to Piers and said, ‘Darling, Ellen was simply marvellous! I don’t know what I’d have done without her! Do you think we could let her choose the name?’

What? What the fuck? No! Don’t make me name your baby! Names are very subjective. Simon and I almost got divorced over choosing our own babies’ names, and I couldn’t possibly name someone else’s child. I had had a hankering for an Isolde, which Simon had dismissed as being pretentiously wanky and not mysteriously romantic, as I insisted, but then again, one of his suggestions had been Deirdra, which I had coldly informed him may well be a classic name from Irish mythology, but would nonetheless only remind me of Deirdre Barlow for the duration of the baby’s life, so NO! So this could be my opportunity for an Isolde! I thought for a moment, before nobly saying, ‘Oh, thank you, Sarah, I’m terribly flattered, but I couldn’t possibly accept. You choose the name yourself!’

‘Well,’ said Sarah, ‘what if we call her Ellen, for her middle name?’

I thought that was rather nice, actually, and I warmed somewhat towards Sarah.

‘Really, if you’re sure, that would be lovely!’ I said, slightly tearfully. ‘But don’t make any hasty decisions. Think about it.’ (They’d better not change their minds, though.)

I reflected, as I finally left the delivery room, that it was just as well the baby had been a girl, as I would have been royally pissed off if it had been a boy and they had called it after Simon for its middle name, as he had been literally no help whatsoever in the entire drama.

Mum and Geoffrey were waiting anxiously when we got home.

‘Well?’ quavered Mum.

‘A little girl!’ I beamed. ‘Eight pounds, three ounces! Name to be confirmed, though there is a good chance she will be named after ME for her middle name, and mother and baby are doing well. Piers is there with her now.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Mum impatiently. ‘You rang and told me that already. But what about my good Lakeland Plastics gravy jug?’

‘Yes, Mum, she did use the gravy jug when she went for a wee. I’m sorry.’

Mum gave a wail of anguish. What price a new step-granddaughter when her Aubusson rug and her gravy jug had both been sullied on the same day?

‘FML!’ I said. ‘I need a drink!’

Astonishingly, Geoffrey was extremely nice to me and thanked me for my part in the proceedings. I felt very noble and heroic, and also extremely smug about how annoyed Jessica would be when she found out that I’d saved the day and was now regarded by the family as a heroine on a par with Grace Darling. Ha!

Friday, 30 December

I popped into the office today because it is fucking impossible to get anything done at home with Simon and the kids there, wandering about wittering. It also means I can conserve that precious annual leave for fun things like fucking school concerts – deep joy. Actually, I wish I had come in much sooner. It was bliss. I was the only one there, and the peace was amazing. It’s astonishing as well how much you can get done when there is nobody ringing you or emailing you, or just stopping by your desk to ask if you want a cup of tea and lingering to chat for a minute. This only serves to confirm my conviction that the world would be a much better place if only there were no Other People.

Of course, the downside to being there by myself was that empty office buildings can feel quite eerie, and I started worrying that maybe a serial killer or psychopath was stalking the corridors, à la The Shining, and then I was too scared to go to the toilet, because if I was murdered, I certainly didn’t want my bloody lifeless corpse to be found on the pan with my knickers round my ankles (especially since they weren’t very glamorous knickers to get murdered in). So you know, swings and roundabouts …

Saturday, 31 December/Sunday, 1 January

Long gone are the days when New Year’s Eve used to mean getting dressed up, trowelling on the slap and going out to get disgracefully, obscenely drunk before kissing a plethora of strangers in the street. In our misspent student days, Simon, Hannah, Charlie and I had several riotous and badly behaved Hogmanays in Edinburgh (well, mine were riotous and badly behaved, and I recall Simon also being fairly uproarious, including his decision to drop his trousers on the Royal Mile one year, which led to him complaining he thought he’d got frostbite on his balls. Hannah and Charlie pointed out that they tended to have been slightly better behaved than us), but over the years, the desire to bring in the New Year by mingling with others has waned somewhat. I did try having a proper New Year’s Eve party a couple of years ago, but that only had the effect of making me hate pretty much everyone I knew until Easter.

This time, therefore, we decided it would be nice to just have a few carefully selected friends round, and we could all put on our pyjamas, plug our darling children into the electronic babysitters and stuff our faces to our elasticated waists’ content on M&S canapés and get mildly puggled while setting the world to rights. Thus it was that Hannah and Charlie, Katie and her nice but dull husband Tim, and Sam came over, complete with assorted moppets and a selection of comfortable slippers and vol-au-vents, and we commenced on New Year’s Eve for the Middle-Aged.

Sam, made bold by the knowledge that I had rashly offered to have all the children stay over (except Katie’s two, as they are small enough to a) need taking to the toilet and I don’t do wiping other people’s children’s bums and b) be scooped up and carried back over the road to bed when necessary), as well as put Hannah and Charlie in the spare room to save them the trouble of trying to get a taxi in the small hours of New Year’s Day (Sam himself living within a reasonable stumbling distance when unencumbered by precious moppets to escort home like a responsible adult), appeared with a bottle of what can only be described as Darkness. It was, he informed me, coffee tequila.

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ I said dubiously. ‘I mean, we are supposed to be being civilised tonight. I’ve done mini sausages in Nigel Slater’s honey and mustard glaze. There are tiny hamburgers to be heated up. Are shots really advisable? The children might see!’

‘The children will know nothing,’ Sam assured me gleefully. ‘They will be too busy twatting each other in between staring slackjawed at iPads to give a shit what we are doing.’

‘Hmmm …’

In the event, the children were more interested in bursting into the sitting room every twenty minutes to demand if it was midnight yet, despite being in possession of almost every bastarding electronic device known to mankind, all of them with clocks on, until I shouted that they would go to bed NOW and not be allowed to stay up, if they did not fuck off RIGHT THIS MINUTE (obviously, I didn’t actually tell them to fuck off, but I fear they grasped the sentiment that was definitely there).

Nonetheless, we did manage to have a very pleasant and almost adult evening, despite the wretched glaze for the mini sausages welding itself onto a perfectly good Le Creuset pot for all eternity, and Simon’s blatant disregard of me telling him that the sausages were hot and to let them cool down first, instead shoving a nugget of molten pork into his mouth and then screaming that it was burning, burning, and spitting it out, only for my poor dog to pounce and gobble it up and find the same thing. Apparently, being more concerned about my precious pupsicle’s burnt tongue than my soulmate’s was not the act of a kind and loving wife.

By midnight, all the children were at a fever pitch of excitement, except Katie’s two – Ruby had fallen asleep behind the sofa and Lily had succumbed under Jane’s desk. We dutifully counted down with Jools Holland, and then shouted, ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR!!’

‘Is that it?’ said Jane, in disappointment. ‘I thought it would feel different, the start of a whole new year. I thought I would feel different. Everything is exactly the same. This is rubbish!’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s pretty much how New Year goes, darling.’

‘Hurrumph!’ said Jane, then, brightening, ‘But seeing as I’m a whole year older, Mummy, maybe you’ll let me have an Instagram account now.’

‘You’re not a whole year older,’ I pointed out. ‘You’re about five minutes older. And so no, still no Instagram account.’

‘OMG! So much for “New Year, New You”!’ whined Jane. ‘You are just as mean as the Old You was. It’s SO UNFAIR!’

‘Jane,’ I said firmly. ‘It is a fresh new year, you are quite right. And so I don’t want to begin it by having the SAME ARGUMENT WITH YOU ABOUT INSTAGRAM THAT I SPENT ALL LAST YEAR HAVING. Are we clear?’

‘Yes,’ said Jane indignantly. ‘It is very clear that your main aim for this year is to RUIN MY LIFE! VERY, VERY CLEAR!’

The only consolation was that I could hear Hannah and Sam having exactly the same arguments with Emily and Sophie, which led me to suspect that the girls had planned this onslaught to catch us at a moment of emotional weakness. I could also hear some sort of row between Simon and Charlie, and Peter, Lucas and Toby about why they were not allowed a beer to toast the New Year. None of this boded well for the year ahead, I felt.

Once the children had been dispatched to some semblance of settling down to go to sleep, still grumbling over our unreasonable insistence on protecting them from paedophiles and underage alcoholism, and Tim and Katie had ruefully departed back across the road, small children bundled beneath their arms, and I had had a brief scroll through all the ‘Happy New Year’ texts and a quick look at Facebook to confirm that everyone was at a better party than me, and squinted at a very random photo that Alan had sent that seemed to involve him trying to push a party popper up his nose, and wondered if I should text him back suggesting that that was probably a bad idea, Sam produced his Bottle of Doom.

‘Let’s just have a little shot to toast the New Year, eh?’ he wheedled.

‘Oh, go on then,’ we said eventually. ‘Just one!’

So. The thing with coffee tequila is that it doesn’t actually taste like tequila. It tastes rather lovely, like a slightly turbocharged shot of Tia Maria, which as everyone knows barely even counts as alcohol, much like Baileys. And so really, you think, what’s the harm in having another one? And another one. An’ nuvver one. And the other thing with coffee tequila is that, much like the grim nineties’ combo of vodka and Red Bull, although it gets you shitfaced, it also gives you a caffeine blast so that you stay awake and continue to make a tit of yourself long after a normal drink would just have caused you pass out while still in possession of some small amount of decorum … Thus it is best that a veil should probably be drawn over the rest of the night, sufficing it only to say that there was dancing and singing and possibly a heartrending, tearstained and emotional rendition of ‘How Much Is That Doggy in the Window’ from me, dramatically clutching my disgusted and horrified dog to my bosom as I wept in his ear at the thought of the poor, unloved Doggy in the Window.