Читать книгу The Mumpreneur Diaries: Business, Babies or Bust - One Mother of a Year - Mosey Jones - Страница 14

The Husband and I experience a temporary cessation of hostilities. Just as I’m coming to terms with the idea that writing might not be the path to post-baby riches, out of the blue I’m told I’ve got a meeting with a man about a book. The money involved isn’t something we can retire on, but perhaps the advance will be enough to lift the Husband out of the doldrums, at least temporarily.

Now there’s no question of me attending that meeting in my present leaky, wobbly tracksuited state. So, for want of anything better to do while I wait for my career as a doula to begin, and because the Husband can hardly complain about me getting poshed up if it’s for money, I begin phase one of my transformation from posset-plastered, post-partum patsy to the magisterial mumpreneur: exterior renovation.

Disappointingly, I’m still sporting the ‘joey pouch’ of the new mother and I change bra size hourly. Raiding the Boden catalogue isn’t an option until my body ceases to have a mind of its own. However, when a girl has clothing issues she goes to the three things that remain constant:

 a handbag will always fit

 shoes will – almost – always fit

 a haircut will always fit (though perms are often regretted).

I’m trying to curb my burgeoning handbag habit. My last ‘score’ was a baby pink Luella for Mulberry. A snip on eBay at £180, the original cost £800 plus. It was practically free. Shoes almost always do fit but as your feet swell a bit when you’re pregnant I’m not sure I can trust their size yet.

This has left a ruinously expensive haircut at the local ‘designer’ salon. A cut and colour sets me back £150. Not Nicky Clarke, I know, but easily a week’s worth of childcare or a week and a half’s maternity allowance. They say trust and openness are the most important elements in a marriage, so I’ll pay in cash so the Husband won’t spot my extravagance on the bank statement. If he spits feathers at my paying £400 for education, he won’t be impressed with £150 worth of salon time. He insists on spending no more than a tenner on a cut. He’s so proud of his thrift I haven’t the heart to tell him how much it shows. That’s the great thing about hair, it grows back. Most of the time.

In the end I get my money’s worth because while I am in the chair and they’re all cooing over the delectable baby, he is violently and copiously sick all over me, the gown, the chair and the floor. Curdled milk mixed with shorn hair and the scent of caramel highlight number 36. This is a small but instructive insight on what life is going to be like if I try to mix babies with business – messy, but we plough on regardless.