Unfortunate Mooncup-related incident in the queue at the Post Office at lunchtime. Generally, I have been getting on really well with it, and it does seem to have reduced my cramps.
The air in the Post Office was really dry, though, and I kept coughing and coughing. The more I coughed the more I felt things shift. By the time I reached the front of the queue I could feel the end of the trimmed stem nudging its way out.
I was clearly looking uncomfortable because the woman behind the counter looked concerned. ‘Are you OK, love?’ she asked.
‘Oh yeah,’ I said, shuffling awkwardly from side to side, ‘I just have a bit of a cough.’
She looked me up and down sceptically.
‘Honestly,’ I said, ‘I’m fine, just a cough.’ I cleared my throat to make my point, dislodging things even further.
I paid for the postage on my parcel as quickly as I could. ‘Do you have a bathroom?’ I asked as she handed me my change. ‘For the cough.’
‘We don’t,’ she said, ‘but the café next door does.’
I made a sharp exit.
I walked confidently through the café to the toilets at the back (as confidently as I could with a Mooncup half out of my body), to make it look like I was definitely going to be heading back to the counter to buy a mocha. (I wasn’t).
Safely in the toilets, I wasn’t sure what to do for the best. Take it out, start again and risk the mess or just try to shove it back up where it was meant to be?
I went for shoving.
Jess came home from nursery today, very excited indeed.
‘Mummy, Mummy!’ she shrieked as she ran across the painted hopscotch to where I was huddled for a feeble amount of warmth under the oak tree in the corner of the mini-playground, ‘will you adopt me!’
Jess arrived at my legs with a bump and looked up at me expectantly.
‘I can’t adopt you,’ I explained, ‘I’m already your Mummy!’
‘But what about the children with no mummies and daddies who need our help?’ she asked.
‘Well, I definitely can’t adopt them!’ I said. ‘I’ve got my hands full as it is.’
Her chin was starting to wobble.
‘You have to adopt me, Mummy, or they won’t have anywhere to live!’ Her eyes were welling up, but I was at a loss. I wasn’t about to promise to open up an orphanage just to avoid a tantrum. (Although I was tempted.)
I noticed she was holding a sheet of paper and I bent down to take it from her.
‘Sponsorship form’ it said. ‘We’re doing a sponsored sing to raise money to help build an orphanage in India!’
‘You mean will I sponsor you,’ I said. ‘Of course I will.’
‘That’s what I said, Mummy.’ She took my hand – hers slightly sticky and warm – and smiled at me. ‘You are silly sometimes, Mummy.’
Scenes caused in the Co-op – 1. Glasses of wine at home to recover myself – 3.
Stopped in the Co-op on the way home for wine and Oreos (branching out a bit from Jaffa Cakes), and had a really annoying conversation with a woman in the queue behind me.
‘Quiet night in with the hubby?’ she asked, nodding at the wine.
The word ‘hubby’ got my back up right away. I told her that no, I was having a quiet night by myself as my children were away for the weekend with their dad – my ex-hubby.
‘I do envy you,’ she said. ‘It’s like the best of both worlds, isn’t it? You get to spend time with your children but then you regularly get the whole weekend to yourself! What a luxury! I bet you have great fun, don’t you? Spa weekends, popping into London to see a show – bliss!’
I was so shocked by how tenuous her connection with the real world seemed to be that for a minute I didn’t know how to reply. Is that really how she imagined I live? ‘Oh yes, fabulous, another weekend without the children, let me give Bunty a call and we can get out the soft-top and take a trip into Mayfair. Let me just finish with this manicure and have my stylist dress me and we can be off!’
And yes, I do appreciate the time I get to myself – I know plenty of married mothers who struggle to get their husbands to even let them lie in until 8 a.m. once a month – but it’s not really the easy option, is it? I’m not bloody Hannah Montana, living my best mum life all week and then slipping on a glittery wig come Friday night for a weekend of frivolous fun.
Eventually, I found my voice.
‘If only it were all city mini breaks and hot stone massages!’ I said, doing a fake laugh – har har har! ‘I actually find it very difficult making ends meet as a single mother of two, so my spare weekends are normally taken up giving blow jobs behind the Co-op for cash so that I can buy school uniform and pay the gas bill.’
Her jaw dropped.
‘Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I get an all-nighter and with the extra money I treat myself to an anal bleaching,’ I added, ‘which has the extra perk of being a work expense, so tax deductible!’
I smiled sweetly, maintaining eye contact until she felt so uncomfortable that she dropped her basket, muttered something about having left the iron on and left the shop. Behind me in the queue there was the sound of clapping. I turned around to see two women with six children between them of various ages.
‘Oh God,’ I said, looking at the small faces staring up at me, ‘I’m so sorry about that.’
‘Are you kidding?’ said the woman with a toddler on her hip. ‘That was incredible! I wanted to laugh so badly I did a tiny wee!’
‘Best thing I’ve heard in ages,’ agreed her friend, ‘I wish I could be there when she goes home and tells her husband about it.’
Woke up to a washing machine full of pink school shirts. This is what happens when you do laundry drunk.
Generally, I am a fan of housework after a glass of wine or two. It feels like it shouldn’t work because drinking is a fun thing and housework is definitely not fun, but that’s the genius of it. If you can time it just at that moment where the world suddenly feels full of promise, then you can take a fair bit of joy from a shiny floor. Things seem to stretch out a little bit – the washing-up becomes a part of you, you’re in the moment … it’s basically meditation, and everyone knows how good that is for you.
I did once get a little bit over enthusiastic ‘organising’ my filing after a couple of gins, but I managed to get all of the bills out of the recycling box before the rubbish lorry arrived the next morning.