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Thursday, 4 August

The children have been at Sports Camp this week. Sports Camps are a very good idea thought up by some sadistic bastard somewhere under the guise of providing fun for children and affordable childcare for parents in the holidays. If your idea of ‘affordable’ is approximately eleventy fucking billion pounds. And your idea of ‘fun’ is providing five different changes of clothes a day for all the different activities, including swimming kit that has to be rescued from their bags each night and washed and dried or else they will just leave it there to moulder and keep stuffing clean towels on top, because they are rancid beasts.

Every time I sign the children up to something like this I have secret hopes that they will discover their hidden talent and turn out to be a tennis/football/gymnastics virtuoso. So far this has not happened, as they seem to spend most of their time eating crisps before pleading for money for the vending machines afterwards, so that my darling poppets, who in theory should be worn out by a day of vigorous activity, are instead smacked off their tits on the energy drinks that they bought even as I howled, ‘Just get Hula Hoops, sweetie, nothing else, I said Hula Hoops, no, don’t open that can, DON’T OPEN THAT. Oh FML!’

Simon is in Madrid, doing whatever it is he does on his important business trips, which I suspect are not nearly as much hard work as he claims, given he gets to stay in a nice hotel (how I appreciated his text informing me he had been upgraded to a suite) and go out for nice dinners in actual restaurants, some of which don’t even serve chips, and where he doesn’t have to issue strict instructions to the staff about how there must be no sauce whatsoever allowed anywhere in the vicinity of the children’s food because obviously terrible things will happen if their burgers are contaminated with anything as awful as mayonnaise or relish, although they will immediately douse them in a vat of ketchup, so they wouldn’t taste the offending sauces anyway. I dream of hotels. I never got to go on fancy trips in the old job, but I had some vague idea that my new career as an app designer might involve me getting to go to conferences and possibly even conventions. Las Vegas seems to have a lot of those sorts of things, and I had visions of myself sending casual texts to Simon from there about what a good time I was having, probably in an upgraded suite, eating food with sauce. Instead, it is just me. And the biscuits. Staring hopelessly at a blank screen and wondering what the fuck I am going to do, and trying not to think about how almost all the redundancy money has now gone. A lot of it spent on biscuits.

I had, obviously, planned that the children being at Sports Camp would be an excellent chance to get some work done, but it hasn’t really worked out. Does anyone actually ever get any work done when they are working from home, or is it just me? I mostly just stared out the window, and perused the Daily Mail website to see who is ‘stepping out’ (going to the shops), ‘flaunting their curves’ (also going to the shops, but in a slightly tighter top than just ‘stepping out’) or ‘slamming’ a fellow Z-lister in a ‘feud’ (putting something vague and attention-seeking on Twitter before deleting it an hour later when the Daily Mail has taken notice). I also played a lot of solitaire before sending a flurry of emails at 2.45 p.m., just before I had to leave to go and pick the children up. Foolishly, one of the emails I sent was to Simon, ever the supportive and beloved husband, who replied to my email questioning the lack of work I had achieved today by saying that yes, it is just me, and he does not procrastinate ever. This is a massive lie, as I have seen his version of working from home, and it involves just as much Daily Mail as mine, and also a lot of browsing Autocar looking at sports cars he can’t afford, then staring pathetically into cupboards FULL OF FOOD (apart from biscuits, because I’ve eaten them all), feebly enquiring why there is never anything to eat in this house.

I think it is safe to say that my virtuous resolution not to drink on week nights is not going well.

Aunt Fanny never had these problems.

After two glasses of wine, and an unpleasant foray into online banking that confirmed my fears about the state of my account, and no adult interaction all day apart from the perky ‘coach’ at the Sports Camp getting me to sign the accident book again, due to Peter’s decision to headbutt the floor for reasons known only to him, I decided that something needed to change, and I signed up for a recruitment agency. Maybe just a little part-time job, to make some money, but that leaves me with plenty of time to come up with my brilliant app idea. And that also will involve lovely business trips to exotic places (there wasn’t actually an option for that, but there really should be).

Friday, 5 August

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I fear I have done a foolish thing. I am at Guide Camp with Jane. I signed up as a parent volunteer at a meeting about the camp a couple of months ago, feeling it was a good and worthy thing to do that would give me a chance to spend some time with Jane like a nice caring mummy, and also – on some level – I would be proving my old Brown Owl wrong for drumming me out of the Brownies for insubordination. (I can’t even remember what I did. I have a vague recollection of objecting to excessive knot-tying and taking the piss while singing ‘Ging Gang Goolie’, but whatever it was, apparently I was Not the Right Sort). But Guide Camp! Guide Camp would make up for it all. A verdant green field, with stout white canvas tents and smoky camp fires to make cocoa on. We would probably get the milk for the cocoa from a local farmer. There may even be ruffianly sorts lurking, just waiting for me to rally the girls and solve a mystery. Oh, yes! I was going to be marvellous at Guide Camp! I eagerly thrust my hand in the air, practically bursting with enthusiasm, when Melanie the Guide Leader asked for volunteers. Too late, I realised I needn’t have been quite so keen, as every other parent had breathed a sigh of relief once they saw that some other poor fool was willing to do it and get them off the hook. Melanie, meanwhile, did not look entirely entranced at my selfless gesture.

‘Ellen!’ she said weakly. ‘How kind of you! Err, are you sure this is your sort of thing?’

I assured Melanie that of course it was my sort of thing.

‘Only, you know, you’ll be in charge of some of the girls. By yourself. Are you quite sure you would be able to cope with that?’ said Melanie anxiously.

I feared Melanie was thinking back to the unfortunate evening a few weeks ago when I had been the parent on duty at Guides and she had been called away to deal with a nosebleed. A nice policeman had come along that evening to give a talk about self-defence, and Melanie had thought it quite safe to leave the rest of the girls in the care of PC Briggs and myself. It was most unfortunate that PC Briggs was quite a young and naïve police officer. It was equally unfortunate that Amelia Watkins had chosen the moment when Melanie was out of the room to ask to see PC Briggs’s handcuffs, claiming she was considering a career in the police force. No sooner had the poor young chap handed them over for Amelia’s inspection, than she swiftly handcuffed him to a chair, and the rest of the girls, sensing weakness as only the under-twelves can, descended mob-handed and relieved him of his baton and walkie-talkie too, before going full-on Lord of the Flies. They danced around him, mocking his pleas to be released, while Tabitha MacKenzie radioed menacing ransom messages back to base and Tilly Everett tried to break Milly Johnson’s arm with the baton and I made ineffectual pleas for them all to settle down.

This all happened within the three minutes that Melanie was absent from the hall. By the time she returned, PC Briggs was on the verge of tears, his radio was crackling ominously with threats of ‘back-up’ being dispatched and Milly had Tilly in a headlock trying to disarm her (Milly at least had been paying attention in the self-defence demonstration).

One shrill blast of Melanie’s whistle restored order, PC Briggs departed hastily, his radio now crackling with hysterical laughter about Girl Guides, and I was sent to sort out the boxes of felt-tip pens, being deemed too irresponsible to even be allowed near the PVA glue.

Nonetheless, as no other parent was now willing to come forth, since a Volunteer had been found, Melanie was stuck with me.

‘Do you know much about camping, Ellen?’ she enquired, without much hope for my answer.

‘Oh, yes!’ I informed her brightly. ‘I went to Glastonbury once. It was marvellous. I’m sure Guide Camp will be much the same. It’ll be fun!’ I assured her. Melanie looked unconvinced.

And now here I am. In a field. Quite a muddy field. There are many, many Girl Guides here, for apparently it is a County Camp, and they have come from far and wide and Melanie wishes to make a good impression. I fear Melanie had not factored in my bright pink Hunter wellies when she was planning her Good Impression. I also fear that she may be slightly judging my jaunty ensemble of denim shorts and a Barbour, which was not dissimilar to my Glastonbury outfit twenty years earlier when I was hoping to channel the likes of Kate Moss and Jo Whiley, but too late I realised that in fact Kate Moss and Jo Whiley are the only women in Britain over the age of twenty-five who can successfully pull off wearing shorts and I looked not so much festival chic as Worzel Gummidge on acid chic. On the plus side, the fake tan I applied to my legs has gone such a lurid shade of orange that they probably glow in the dark, so I will be easy to find if I get lost in the field at night.

If Melanie was disappointed in me, I was equally disappointed to discover that instead of the proper white canvas bell tents I had envisaged, we were accommodated in nasty nylon monstrosities in a fetching shade of puce green. These were, Melanie informed me, far more practical and hi-tech than an old-fashioned tent, and I would be both warmer and more comfortable.

‘But the other ones are so beautiful!’ I sighed, as an increasingly exasperated Melanie tried to direct fifteen over-excited girls and me to put the tents up, and I gazed longingly across the field to a row of Proper Tents. ‘How could they be less comfortable than these horrors? Why, the beautiful tents are just crying out for bunting and cushions and strings of fairy lights!’

‘For Christ’s sake, Ellen!’ snapped Melanie. ‘You’re at County Camp, not a Cath Kidston convention. Where is your Baden-Powell Spirit?’

Where was my Baden-Powell Spirit indeed? It was becoming increasingly clear that I seemed to be sorely lacking Baden-Powell Spirit, which was possibly the real reason I had been so ignominiously thrown out of the Brownies all those years ago. I couldn’t help but think mutinous thoughts that if there were mysteries to be solved and criminal sorts to be thwarted, the thwarting would almost certainly fall to those lucky souls in the charmingly rustic, vintage tents.

Saturday, 6 August

I have decided I do not like camping. Camping is basically sleeping in a field. Sleeping in a field is fine when you are twenty-two and off your tits on fifteen pints of cider and some dubious illegal substances after dancing like a loon to splendid nineties rock and pop, but other than that, why would anyone want to go and sleep in a field for fun when they have a perfectly good house and bed? Moreover, why would they sleep in a field when they were stone cold sober? It is not right. There is nowhere to plug in my hair straighteners. But then again, there is nowhere to wash my hair either, so at least the grease is weighing down the frizz, so you know, swings and roundabouts. I think a beetle got in my hair last night too. I am sure I could feel something moving. Melanie wasn’t very impressed when I woke her up after I tried to get the beetle out of my hair. She asked me to go back to sleep as there are no poisonous beetles in Britain. She was unsympathetic when I whimpered that what if I was allergic to the beetle and didn’t know on account of having never had a beetle in my hair before. I think Melanie is regretting letting me come, which is fair enough, as I am very much regretting coming myself. It is not at all like Glastonbury, and nor is it anything like my Famous Five fantasies. I think we have the wrong kind of mud here.

There is no adorably smoky wood fire to cook sausages on. Instead there is a terrifying gas stove that could take my eyebrows off when I light it. It is even worse than lighting the Bunsen burners in the chemistry lab at school. I didn’t say this to Melanie, though, as between Beetlegate and her having to get up multiple times in the night to settle homesick girls/break up midnight feasts/minister to tummy aches brought on by excessive consumption of Revels at 3 a.m., she did not look like concern for my eyebrows was top of her list. Nonetheless, I am quite admiring of Melanie, even if a part of me suspects that she made me light the gas stove in the hope that I would manage to set myself on fire and she would be relieved of my ineptitude. She just gets on with it all, and even when the Guides are being really annoying, she doesn’t lose her rag with them and tell them to just fuck off, like I probably would if I was in charge. Nor does she resort to mainlining gin, which would probably be my other coping strategy if I was her. I think it must take someone really quite special to do something like this – perhaps that is where the Baden-Powell Spirit comes in.

I always thought that I would have been quite splendid in the Blitz – that I was a trooper and would have been some sort of inspirational figure, leading rousing sing-songs and fashioning ingenious things out of clothes pegs, but it is becoming apparent that I would probably have spent the Blitz being useless and flapping around while the Melanies of the 1940s built bomb shelters with their bare hands.

There are no signs of coiners or smugglers to thwart, which is probably just as well, as all the girls seem more interested in going to the toilet en masse and stuffing their faces with more contraband sweeties than they do in Solving Mysteries. There was an archery session, where Jane came over all William Tell and had to be restrained from trying to shoot a Granny Smith off Tilly Morrison’s head, and an orienteering activity during which the girls were unimpressed with maps and compasses and pointed out that Google Maps existed.

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘But what if there was no Google Maps?’

‘Why would there be no Google Maps, though?’ said Amelia Benson.

‘Well, you could have no signal, or your battery could be dead,’ I pointed out, but the girls looked unconvinced.

‘Or you could have lost your phone,’ I added.

‘So, we’ve lost our phone, but we just happen to have a map and a compass?’ objected Olivia Brown. ‘It’s not very likely, is it, Ellen?’

‘Well,’ I said, starting to get irritated, ‘maybe there has been a nuclear apocalypse and Google Maps no longer exists because civilisation has been wiped out along with most of the human race, and you are one of the lone survivors and all you have to help you get to safety before you starve to death is a map and a bloody compass, and if you are unable to navigate by them then you will die by the roadside like the rest of the population of the planet!’

Mia Robinson burst into tears. ‘I don’t want to be the only one left alive!’ she sobbed. ‘What about my hamster? Can hamsters survive nuclear apocalypses?’

‘No,’ said Jane. Mia sobbed harder, and proved quite inconsolable. Melanie had to be summonsed to comfort her and assure her that there was no chance of a nuclear holocaust any time soon, and the orienteering was just a bit of fun, and her hamster would be fine, yes and her mum and dad too.

While Melanie was doing this, her own orienteering group managed to wander off and get lost somewhere in the woods and a search party had to be launched. The other Guide leaders were quite judgemental of Melanie for losing her Guides, and I fear she blames me for all this. We were summonsed to a singalong this evening and we had to sing some complicated clapping song where you also had to clap the hand of the person next to you, and I’m pretty sure that Melanie didn’t need to slap my hand nearly as hard as she did. Hopefully there will be no beetles tonight, as I think she might do more than slap me if I have to wake her up. I’m sure there were no beetles at Glastonbury – it’s probably the wrong kind of mud here that attracts them. I wonder if I am too old to go to Glastonbury again? Do they let in fortysomethings? Could I even hack the pace, or would I just die? I mean, obviously one could no longer dabble in illegal substances, because one is middle-aged and respectable, and all the cider would make me need to pee all the time because I’ve had two children and my bladder is not what it was, and I’m not sure I could cope with festival toilets anymore. Maybe I would have to go to one of the Old People’s Festivals, like Rewind or something? I wonder if they have better toilets? But they are often billed as being ‘family friendly’, and if I have escaped my own cherubs to get pissed up and behave badly for the weekend, the last thing I want is Other People’s Children roaming around. Oh God, I am a terrible person. Melanie can probably tell, and that’s why she hates me. As well as the whole traumatising one of her Guides and making her lose six others thing, obviously.

Sunday, 7 August

I am home! I am washed! Eventually. Oh, the bliss. Sort of.

This morning, after Dicing with Death with the Stove of Doom and dispensing frankly revolting eggy bread to the girls, who didn’t seem to care, we took the tents down. Melanie was relieved to find that I am not totally useless, and could at least work out that to take the tent down, you simply reverse the putting-up procedure, and it all went relatively smoothly, despite the Guides’ best efforts to get trapped in the middle of collapsing tents. We didn’t lose any more girls, and I managed not to upset any more of them, which was just as well, as Melanie was up several times in the night with Mia having nightmares. Hopefully she won’t tell Mia’s parents that it was me who has caused her fears of the Nuclear Winter. Something has bitten me in an unspeakable place, though. I suspect the killer beetle.

On arriving home with a grubby and sleep-deprived Jane, I was hopeful that Simon and Peter might have kept the home fires burning in my absence. I may lack Baden-Powell Spirit, but sometimes I am an incurable optimist. Sadly, my optimism was misplaced, as the house was a pit of fucking hell. I would go so far as to say squalid. I am not going to be an optimist anymore, I have decided, I am going to be a pessimist. It seems a much better idea. A pessimist will only ever either be proved right or pleasantly surprised – there is no disappointment lurking for pessimists the way there is for optimists.

Simon was the picture of injured innocence as I shouted about why were there pants strewn in places that pants ought not to be, and no one had emptied the bin or flushed the bog, let alone removed the skidmarks or wiped the counters, and instead of putting away the clean dishes in the dishwasher to make room for the dirty ones, they had simply taken to piling the dirty dishes on the worktop above the dishwasher, waiting hopefully for the Magical Bastarding Dishwasher Fairy to wave her wand and furnish them with clean bowls.

‘What exactly have you done while I have been gone?’ I ranted. ‘And DON’T say “Looked after Peter”. He is hardly a baby that needs constant tending.’

‘Actually, darling,’ said Simon with irritating smugness, ‘I have cleaned out the fridge and sorted through the cupboards and thrown out everything that was out of date.’

I went cold. ‘You have done what?’ I said in horror.

I flung open the cupboards. All the spices – gone!

‘Some of them were two years out of date,’ said Simon indignantly.

I whimpered.

The cupboard full of posh rice and pasta and the token bag of quinoa, because middle-class – empty.

‘FOUR years!’ Simon informed me. ‘The quinoa was four years out of date! It hadn’t even been opened! And the risotto rice expired last month, and the red carmargue rice was two months out of date, and there was a packet of funny shaped pasta that went off six months ago. And there was a tin of spaghetti hoops that was SIX years out of date!’

‘These things don’t go off,’ I said furiously. ‘Spices are MEANT to be out of date! Nobody has in-date spices, the people who say you should throw them out after six months are just trying to trick you. When they start tasting like dust is when they are getting GOOD. And pasta and rice are clearly edible for months after the arbitrary date on the packet and now I will have to waste money buying more quinoa for no one to eat, because if we have no quinoa in the cupboard are we even middle-class? And tinned stuff NEVER goes bad. NEVER! That is why people hoard tins for after the nuclear apocalypse. If there is a nuclear apocalypse tonight, we needn’t bother trying to survive, because we will all starve anyway because YOU THREW OUT MY EMERGENCY SPAGHETTI HOOPS!’

‘I think you’re over-reacting again, darling.’ smirked Simon. ‘Look in the fridge.’

I opened the fridge. No jam. No ketchup. No mayonnaise. Not a single vegetable. The three tubs of antiquated houmous that were looking increasingly menacing and I was actually quite scared to touch had also vanished, which was something.

‘All out of date,’ beamed Simon.

‘The potatoes?’

‘Out of date yesterday.’

‘Carrots, onions, garlic?’

‘Gone, gone, gone!’

‘But there was nothing wrong with them. Unless they are actually sprouting, going green or decomposing, they are absolutely fine.’

‘Out of date! Out of date!’ insisted Simon. ‘They had to go.’

‘FML,’ I muttered. ‘Well, I suppose we’re getting a takeaway for dinner, then. And where is the ham? That wasn’t out of date.’

‘No, but it said eat within two days of opening and it had been open for more than two days, so out it went.’

‘FFS!’ I said. ‘Literally NO ONE pays any attention to that. NO ONE! I am going to have a shower and scrape off field residue, and you can go to Sainsbury’s and BUY SOME FUCKING FOOD.’

‘But I’ve been busy sorting all this out and looking after Peter all weekend! Even though, really, sorting out the fridge and cupboards should be your job, now you’re not working, but I did it for you anyway.’ protested Simon. ‘Can’t you pop to the shop?’

‘Firstly, I AM working, I am trying to build myself a new career, I’m hardly sitting around reading magazines and eating bonbons all day like a lady of leisure,’ (this might be a slight lie, obviously) ‘so I don’t know where you get the idea that everything in the house is now my responsibility. Secondly, I HAVE BEEN SLEEPING IN A FUCKING FIELD AND BEEN TORMENTED BY BEETLES AND RISKED MY LIFE WITH A VERY DANGEROUS GAS STOVE IN ORDER TO CREATE WONDERFUL CHILDHOOD MEMORIES FOR YOUR DAUGHTER, WHILE YOU THREW OUT VAST QUANTITIES OF PERFECTLY GOOD FOOD!’ I roared. ‘YOU go to the bastarding shop!’

Simon went to the shop. He came home chuntering in outrage at the iniquitous price of food, which frankly serves him right for throwing everything out. How marvellous it is to be home. I have several weeks more of such fun to look forward to.

Wednesday, 10 August

Today, lacking any other inspiration for something to do with my darling children, we went to the park. I hate the park. The park is where mummies go when their precious moppets have driven them so fucking mad that they now need to be in the presence of witnesses to stop them doing something they regret. Sometimes I wonder about trying to tot up all the hours I have spent in cold, draughty parks since the children were born, but frankly it is too depressing. Also, everyone witters on at you about the dangers of getting piles in pregnancy, but no one, not one single fucker, ever tells you that actually you are more likely to get piles from the hours upon hours upon hours you will now spend sitting on a chilly, damp park bench. Still, at least it is summer, so the risk of piles and chilblains is slightly diminished.

I cannot enter the hallowed portals of the actual play park because I brought the dog with me, so we lurk outside while toddlers’ mummies glare at us in case we make a break for the gate so Judgy can do a shit in the sandpit and I can rub it in their cherub’s eye and BLIND THEM FOR EVER! Obviously, I know dog poo can be very dangerous, and of course I don’t condone people who let their dogs crap in children’s play parks. I just resent the hisses of horror from the mummies whenever a dog ventures within a hundred feet of the gate. Luckily, Peter and Jane are now old enough that they don’t need close supervision in the park anymore. Peter is perfectly capable of trying to break a limb on the monkey bars all by himself, and Jane is more interested in taking selfies with Sophie on the old iPhone she cajoled out of me and now insists on taking everywhere with her despite me pointing out that she doesn’t actually need a phone at the park.

While the children played, I had a quick look through my emails, where there was nothing of much interest – another Nigerian general just needed my bank account details to transfer his millions (I wonder if I could invent an app that somehow spams back the spammers?), Gap had another sale (when does Gap not have a sale? Does anyone ever buy anything full price in Gap? Maybe I could make an app for Gap, for all their sales. Oh, they already have one. Bugger), and one more email from the recruitment company I had signed up for. I almost deleted the recruitment company’s email, as despite carefully filling in the forms telling them my qualifications, my interests, the fields I wished to work in and the salary I was looking for, so far they had sent a steady stream of jobs that were nothing to do with my expertise, were located five hundred miles away and paid approximately a third of what I previously earned. However, mainly so I could look like I was doing something important – and thus avoid catching the eye of any of the other parents and having to engage in conversation – I opened it, and lo and behold, IT WAS ONLY MY DREAM FUCKING JOB!

It was perfect. I’d be working for one of the hottest new tech start-up companies of the last five years, who occupied a sexy, shiny, modern, glass office block, instead of a grey building on a grey industrial estate, yet was only about twenty minutes’ drive from my house.

I have often passed the office building and metaphorically pressed my nose against the glossy mirrored-glass windows. Apparently, it’s just as cool inside (yes, I might have googled it. Repeatedly), with light and space and acres of white desks and Beautiful People. OK, maybe I am imagining the Beautiful People, but I am pretty sure everyone who works there is super-cool and trendy and probably wears hipster glasses and ethical trousers. They probably have Whatsapp groups to discuss things instead of insisting on pointless two-hour meetings to resolve something that could have been sorted with one email, and if they do have meetings they sit on … oooh … I dunno, beanbags or something. Actually, do I want to work somewhere with beanbags? I’m almost forty-two. Could I manage to get up off a beanbag with dignity? They probably don’t have beanbags, it’ll be fine.

And I’d actually be doing something quite stimulating and challenging and interesting, unlike the old job where the best thing I got to do was tell Dodgy Ed in Accounts that actually, no, it wasn’t possible to eradicate all traces of the hardcore porn that he had ‘accidentally downloaded’ from his laptop (in a fit of malice I also claimed that, in fact, the internet tracks everything you do and so even if he bought a new laptop and threw that one in a river, the internet would know about the porn and so his wife would still be able to see what he had been watching).

The pay is really good, too. Which would be awfully nice, as the redundancy money has almost run out, and I hate the idea of not having my own money. I know it all goes into the joint account anyway, but I’ve always contributed to that, and the idea of being ‘dependent’ on Simon sticks somewhat in my throat. The only downside is that it would be a full-time position.

I suppose I should really have discussed the whole full-time thing with Simon first, but I was so excited about my perfect job coming up pretty much right on my doorstep (and mentally I had also spent most of my lovely new salary already) that I just went ahead and told the agency to put me forward for it. Oh, what bliss it would be if I got it! And now the children are at school most of the time, the extra money would easily cover any increased childcare costs, and then some. I am crossing my fingers and toes and legs and … what else can one cross, apart from eyes? Maybe I am still a bit of an optimist.

Saturday, 20 August

I am rested, recharged and raring to go after my wonderful, relaxing family holiday with my darling children and beloved husband. Oh, what a splendid time we had! Oh, how we frolicked! And the japes. The japes! One day the children will look back on those golden sun-drenched days, and they will smile fondly at the #happymemories created as they laughed and ran along those sandy Cornish beaches in tasteful knitwear, the wind in their hair and their youth before them. Or at least they will if they look at my Instagram account, which reports on the holiday I would like to have had, as opposed to the holiday I actually had, which mainly consisted of doing laundry, attempting to play an ancient game of Mousetrap that was missing half the pieces, trying to cook in an unfamiliar kitchen and swearing because every damn knife in the place was blunt. Incidentally, why are knives in holiday houses ALWAYS so blunt? Is it because they are concerned that under the pressure to have a marvellous time and keep those #happymemories coming that someone might crack and try to murder their family if they have to listen to one more whine about how everyone else goes to Center Parcs and why do we have to go to Cornwall (because we are middle-class, darling, and also slightly pretentious), and can we go to Center Parcs next year? (No, sweetie, because your father hates People.) Then there’s the moaning about why is there no wifi (because we’re here to talk to each other, poppet, and have a lovely time, not stare at our tablets, and yes, I did go outside to get a 4G signal, but I needed to upload my photographs to Instagram because how else will anyone know we are having a lovely time? We ARE having a lovely time. YES, WE ARE! WE ARE HAVING A LOVELY TIME BECAUSE I FUCKING WELL SAY WE ARE HAVING A LOVELY TIME! No, you can’t borrow my phone to play Pokémon Go. Because there aren’t any Pokémon in Cornwall. No, of course I’m not lying to you, why would I lie to you?).

Were it not for the fact that I am just as adept as the next person at lying on social media, I would be convinced that every other child in the country spends the entire summer holidays in some sort of sun-drenched, golden Enid Blyton world, laughing and frolicking on beaches, skipping through wildflower meadows, flying kites and building sandcastles with their loving parents, but according to Facebook and Instagram, with a little help from a few filters, my children had done exactly the same all summer long.

Anyway, we are home now, everyone is exhausted after the long and hideous drive, we appear to have brought most of Cornwall’s beaches back with us in the car and the suitcases, and there are vast mounds of laundry to be done, and frankly, I don’t actually know why we bother going on holiday, when you need another holiday to get over going on holiday. But anyway, I do at least have some lovely photos, even if the children did keep complaining that I took too many photos of them and whining about why did I need so many photos and I snarled that I needed the photographs for my dotage, when I was old and grey and they had grown up and left me and all I had to remember their childhood was these photos. I even got a nice photo of Simon, which is miraculous as usually he just pulls stupid faces when I point a camera at him. I suppose at least I know where the children get it from!

BUT, on the way back, I got a phone call to say that the Dream Job want to see me for an interview! Simon was somewhat dismissive, pointing out that an interview is very different to being offered the job, sighing deeply and telling me not to get my hopes up, but fuck him. It’s a step in the right direction, even if Simon is insisting on pissing on my chips as ever. Just for once, it would be nice if he could be positive about something I do and encourage me, instead of always seeing the dark side and predicting dire results. Just a little bloody faith, that’s all! Is that too much to ask? Anyway, much more important than Simon Misery Pants FartFace, is the question of what I am going to wear?

Astonishingly, Peter’s plant is still alive, despite being abandoned for a week.

Friday, 26 August

How many weeks has it been? It feels like forever. Will they ever go back to school? I am starting to lose hope the holidays will ever end. The only bright spot at the moment is the upcoming interview, and the potential to become a high-powered, corporate Proper Person, instead of a dispenser of snacks and referee-er of fights. I suggested today that building a den in the garden might be a fun way to pass the time. The children looked at me as if I had proposed that they should shit in their hands and then clap. Instead, since it was sunny, they demanded to have a water fight instead. Much against my better judgement, as I am firmly convinced that water fights are nothing more than a fast track to A&E with a broken limb, or at the very least some blood and nasty bruising, but lacking the strength any more to argue, I agreed.

For at least ten minutes they were outside hurling water and screaming before they decided they were bored and cold and instead it would be far more fun to tramp mud and water and grass through the kitchen, use an unfeasible number of clean towels, get dressed in a whole new set of clothes to the ones they were wearing earlier, and then, just as I had mopped up the swamp from the kitchen floor, request to play on the Slip’N Slide.

I denied them the Slip’N Slide, as we had been fortunate enough to get through the water fight without anyone being maimed, so I was not tempting fate by getting out the plastic Mat of Doom that should really be renamed the Slip’N BreakYourNeck. I pointed out the many wholesome activities available to them in the garden: they could jump on the yellow and blue monstrosity that has destroyed any tasteful Zen vibes in my garden, they could play with the swingball, they could read a book underneath a motherfucking tree, but they were not coming inside on a glorious summer’s day to stare at a screen and nor was I taking them anywhere or spending a single penny on their entertainment that day. They were playing in the garden – and that was final.

With that, I retreated inside to stare at a screen under the guise of work. Well, I told them I was ‘working’. In actual fact I was googling ‘cool interview outfits’ (all of which seemed to involve alarming high heels and very thin people in amazing jackets that I don’t think I could get my tits into) in an effort to present myself as ruthlessly professional but also Down With the Youth at my interview. I was also fretting because all the women in the photos were carrying takeaway cups of coffee – is this now a required accessory? Might they not take me seriously if I don’t turn up clutching a cardboard cup of a grande soy latte? Is that even the order the words go in? Also, I thought all the big coffee chains were frowned upon as unethical tax dodgers. Maybe if I bring the wrong sort of coffee I’ll be off the shortlist before I’ve even opened my mouth. Perhaps I should just take the free coffee from Waitrose. Is Waitrose considered ethical? I DON’T KNOW! I only know it is middle-class! All these, and other worries, were swirling around in my head when after half an hour or so, I realised I could hear something terrifying. Silence. There is never silence from my precious moppets unless Something Bad is happening. I flung open the back door to find a disconsolate Jane trying to disentangle a yoyo string.

‘Where’s Peter?’ I demanded.

Jane shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

‘Well, isn’t he out here with you? Didn’t you notice him going somewhere?’

Jane shrugged again, and mumbled he was probably inside and that wasn’t fair, if he was on his iPad then, she, Jane, who had not defied my instructions, deserved EXTRA iPad time to make up for Peter’s getting time just now and also even more extra time to reflect her obedience. I cut short Jane’s lengthy argument about her screen time and dashed inside to look for Peter. I bellowed and shouted, to no response. He wasn’t in his bedroom, he wasn’t in the sitting room, he wasn’t in the loo, he wasn’t even in Jane’s bedroom stealing things to annoy her.

‘JANE!’ I shouted. ‘Are you SURE you didn’t see where he went?’

Jane insisted she had not, adding a hasty disclaimer that whatever fate may have befallen Peter, it was definitely not her fault.

That icy dread started to grip me. My rational brain was churning out statistics, reminding me that the chances of him being absolutely fine were really very high, while the rest of me was screaming silently inside because my baby boy was missing, and I didn’t even know what he was wearing to give a description to the police because he had changed clothes so many times today already due to bloody water fights.

WHY hadn’t I just let him play on the Slip’N Slide? Better an afternoon at A&E with a mildly mangled limb than the scenarios now playing out through my head – the treacherous ponds; the unmarked vans screeching to halt and speeding off again, unseen by anyone; the boy racer, flying down a suburban street slightly too fast to stop for the small figure darting out to chase a ball. For a fleeting second, I wondered whether there were any disused mine shafts around that he could have fallen down. Would Judgy Dog be able to track him? Probably not. He hates Peter with a vengeance, and the feeling is mutual.

By the time all those thoughts had run through my mind I was out on the street, yelling Peter’s name at the top of my voice and trying not to sound too hysterical. He could only have been missing for fifteen minutes at the very most – it was too soon to call the police, I told myself. Hearing me shouting, my neighbour and kindred spirit Katie appeared from across the street, and I gabbled out what had happened.

‘Oh God!’ she said. ‘I’ll help you look. Let me grab my girls, then I’ll go down that way and you go down the other way, and if he doesn’t hear us shouting, we’ll start knocking on doors. We’ll find him, Ellen, don’t worry.’

I nodded, too afraid I would cry if I had to actually speak, and set off, bellowing for Peter, Jane trailing behind (I could not let her out of my sight. It was bad enough I had mislaid one child; to lose another would doubtless cause Lady Bracknell-esque pronouncements upon my parenting).

I got to the end of the street, still shouting, and was working my way back up, my voice now hoarse and the fear held at bay by the thinnest of threads, when Karen Davison at number 47 opened her door, looking surprised.

‘Peter’s here!’ she said. ‘Didn’t you know?’

‘No!’ I choked. ‘I thought he was in the garden and then he was gone.’

‘He’s here, playing on that bloody Slip’N Slide with my grandsons,’ said Karen. ‘He was playing in your front garden when we came past on the way home from the shop and the boys asked him if he wanted to come over. I told him he had to check with you first, and he went inside and came out with his swimming trunks and said it was fine, so I assumed he had told you.’

I was too relieved at finding Peter alive and intact and not trapped down a collapsing mine shaft to even be angry at him for buggering off without telling me. I grabbed him and hugged him tightly (a bad move in hindsight, as he was soaking wet), and then rather embarrassingly burst into tears and sobbed, ‘Don’t you EVER, EVER do that again. I was so worried!’

‘I’m sorry, Mummy,’ said Peter. ‘I thought it would be OK because I wasn’t going very far. I didn’t mean to scare you.’

‘I was only scared because I love you,’ I wept.

‘I love you too, Mummy. I won’t scare you like that again, I promise.’

Oh God, I nearly lost my son because I was too busy worrying about what sort of coffee to take to an interview! What sort of mother am I? Maybe I should give up all thoughts of going back to work full-time and just become an earth Mother, and do crafts with them – even though I hate crafts – and devote every moment of my existence to them to make up for my previous abject failings, in the hope that they are not too scarred by my selfishness. I mean, they seem unscarred – the only person who seemed to be traumatised by this afternoon is me, but maybe the damage is deeper and will only be revealed in their thirties when they enter therapy and realise that everything that is wrong with their life can be traced back to my dubious parenting?

Both Jane and Judgy Dog were unimpressed by Peter’s safe return.