Emergency early morning supermarket visits – 2. Number of recipes created by Instagram chefs for ‘potato brownies’ – I’m guessing none. Glasses of wine drunk to take the taste of potato brownie away – 2. (Legitimate.)
Left early for preschool to track down a sweet potato.
Tesco Express distinctly lacking on the sweet potato front. Risked the five-minute drive in the opposite direction to try the Co-op, as they always seem like the most wholesome of the supermarkets, but there was just an empty green plastic crate where the sweet potatoes were meant to be.
Time was not on my side, so I was forced to instigate Plan B – I bought a regular potato and then, using a sticky biro I found in the glove box, I drew a very smiley, kind-looking face on it. One sweet potato.
I presented it to Jess nervously. I watched her face tensely, looking for signs of mistrust.
‘Are you sure this is right, Mummy?’ she asked.
‘It’s not quite right, I said, ‘but it’s the best I can do.’ I explained the joke, and luckily she thought it was very funny and clever of me.
Work gets worse and worse. My working day is only meant to be seven and a half hours, but I swear it’s actually about three and a half weeks. The newsroom is so quiet it makes you want to scream just to hear a human noise. The only person who really speaks is one particularly arrogant newly qualified reporter who walks with a swagger that implies he’s just doing his time at the local paper until he gets the call to become editor of The Sun, where he’ll work for twenty years before retiring to Jersey with his inappropriately aged wife and his alcoholism.
What can I do, though? I need to stick it out for a few months at least – it’s not going to look great at interviews to have only been in a job for a month, is it? I need to just hang on in for a while, to show I’ve given it a good go, and then I can start looking for something else.
Spaghetti and pesto for tea, followed by potato (non-sweet) and cinnamon brownies. (Grim, but I tried.) Seriously considering the family villa holiday.
Please God, don’t make me have to write another obituary.
Went into Chapter One at lunchtime to see Dylan to stop me attempting to take my own life through a series of tiny paper cuts administered with report sheets from local football matches. Dylan made me a cup of coffee, which was also a nice break from work, and I admired his new autumn window display. He’d made a big tree out of large twigs and sticks and had hung books from the branches and scattered them around the base like fallen leaves. He’d chosen books with covers in autumnal colours. It looked pretty ace.
Dylan suggested that, to try to make work less tedious, I think about other things I could do with the rest of my time to balance it out. ‘You love books,’ he said, ‘so how about joining a reading group.’
‘I’ve tried the Barnmouth Literary Association,’ I said, ‘but as you can imagine from the name they’re terribly earnest. They only talk about books and they just drink tea, even though it’s in the evening. The week I went one of the women had prepared a short essay on the book, which she read aloud to the group.’
‘Ah,’ said Dylan, ‘I can see that might not be your thing. Especially the tea.’
‘How about if we start one here?’ I suggested. ‘We could hold it upstairs, or even down here, depending on how many people there were to start with, and you could have a little display in the shop every month and everyone could buy the book from you?’
‘It sounds like a great idea,’ said Dylan, ‘but I’m not sure I can really spare another evening away from the girls.’
‘I’d run it!’ I said, starting to get excited. ‘We can ask the mums from upstairs and Flo would do us some posters, I bet. It would be fun!’
We agreed to give it a go.
We talked a lot about book choices but decided we’d make it more of a group-led decision. For the first meeting we are going to ask people to choose one book they really love and would like to recommend. We’re going to have the first meeting in November, after half-term.
I sparked controversy at Chapter One parent group today when I casually mentioned that I thought rich tea biscuits were definitely the best for dunking. The clue is in the name, right? Rich tea – they’re made for tea.
Sierra was aghast. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘If you’re going to be as monstrous as to dunk a biscuit in a cup of tea in the first place, then you need something that you can rely on, something sturdy. Like a gingernut.’
‘A gingernut?’ I said. ‘Are you mad? The fun of dunking is the element of risk. Where is the excitement and the tension with a gingernut?’
‘Personally, I prefer a piece of fruit mid-morning,’ said Louise.
‘Bollocks,’ said Sierra. ‘No you don’t. You love a Hobnob as much as the rest of us – you just don’t want anyone to know about it.’
Lou looked shifty.
A fourth voice piped up from behind us. It was Ricki, Alfie’s mum. Ricki is usually pretty quiet, so clearly this was a subject she felt passionate about.
‘I’m actually an advocate of a party ring,’ said Ricki. I gasped. ‘Hear me out,’ she said, turning around in her chair to face us. ‘Think about it. A party ring is designed to be tossed about at kids’ birthdays, isn’t it? It’s robust.’ We nodded, conceding the point.
‘Absorbency is low, so it’s not as risky as a rich tea, but it’s not up there with the gingernut – there’s always an element of surprise. And then there’s the icing – it’s sweet, but not sickly, and the tea dissolves it in a fun way, giving it an edge. A party ring has a lot going on.’
At that moment Alfie fell into a box of Meccano and the debate was cut short. She’d given us a lot to think about, though.
Spent some time this evening lying down, studying myself from different angles, in anticipation of, at some point, getting a new boyfriend and having to be seen naked. The very thought of it fills me with horror, but I felt it was probably best to know, at least.
Fully clothed was not too awful, although I must remember never to let a man look at me from below when I have my hair tied back as basically I look like a fat, bald man with three chins. If any man should ever find himself lying on top of me with his chin nestled in my cleavage, trying to gaze up into my eyes, he’s probably not going to be doing it again soon.
Ideally, I want someone to be looking down the length of my body from above my head, while I wear a push-up bra, so that my boobs look passable and my legs are far enough away to have a semblance of slimness about them.
Potentially, a difficult situation to engineer at all times, but not impossible.
Then I decided to try the naked version and almost immediately wanted to start using my full name and actually become a nun. ‘Sister Frances, welcome to the blessed church of St Mary, here is your body-length sack. May no person ever set eyes on your puckered, saggy body again.’
(Question: is this why nuns become nuns, so that they can just let it all go and never have to worry about that bit of fat that insists on hanging out over the top of your pants? I feel like it’s probably a bit more faith-based, but this must be a perk.)
Honestly, I can barely even bring myself to write about it. I know I am meant to love my body – Oprah (or maybe Trisha?) once told me that stretch marks were just ‘scars of motherhood’ and that we should love them just like we do our children – but it’s hard, especially sometimes when you’re single. Ian always used to tell me how much he loved my body and, regardless of how sceptical I was about it, it does help to have someone reassuring you, someone who you know genuinely does love seeing you naked, no matter how hairy your legs.
Lying naked, on my back, I had to keep my arms pressed against my sides to stop my boobs disappearing into my armpits. I don’t feel like that is going to make for a liberating new sexual encounter, is it? Without the arm barriers, the right one in particular doesn’t stand a chance. Since I stopped breastfeeding Jess, it’s like the last lot of milk went and they couldn’t be bothered to refill themselves.
You know how sometimes, when you do the washing, one sock gets inside another one and when you hang it on the line you notice a lump in the end? Well, imagine two socks like that, hung on the line.
That is my breasts.
Now imagine those breasts attached to me while I am on all fours.
I may never have sex again.
I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. Don’t make me. Gah.