Thursday 18th December – Lights, camera, pooh

The ghastliness continues.  So far today I have:

• Split a bag of frozen peas and tipped them upside down in the freezer.  Thought: ‘Fuck that!’ and shut the door.  Normally I go in the freezer once a day or less.  Today I have had to go in the freezer half a dozen times.  Every time I open the door, a whole load of petis pois, or small green balls of death, as I now like to refer to them, skitter out and run about on the kitchen floor.  I think about disembowelling the freezer to chase the remainder as I grovel, swearingly on the kitchen floor.  Then I think: ‘Fuck that!’ and shut the freezer door again.
• Found that I am officially post menstrual or mid menstrual, I don’t bloody know.  Anyway, am relieved because this may mean that giant breasts will have gone down enough by tomorrow for me not to have to raid RAF supplies for a new bra.  On the other hand, am in agony today.  This has meant instead of going to the Co-op to buy supplies for childrens’ tea, going to the Londis shop round the corner instead.  Everything costs twice as much, and I have paid as much for one tea as for half a week’s shopping.  Nevertheless it was quicker, they sell Thornton’s continental chocolate bars, and I was home within fifteen minutes.
• My diet today has been somewhat appalling due to the need to eat large quantities of sugar.  Breakfast consisted of a bowl of dried Shreddies followed by two paracetamol and half a family pack of Minstrels.  As I was crunching them down I thought about their tag line in days of yore.  ‘Minstrels, melt in your mouth, not in your hand.’  I was always impressed by this as a child.  Thinking about it now I realise that no chocolate has ever stayed in my hand long enough to melt, thus rendering tagline impotent and pointless.
• Lunch was salt and vinegar crisps, two slices of burnt brown toast and a Thorntons Viennese Truffle Bar, washed down with paracetamol.  Tea will be leftover fishfingers and half a Yule log and paracetamol.  I do think it’s important to plan these things.
• I have vaguely tidied up today. I was going to clean, then I got on to the chocolate and pills and decided it wouldn’t be worth it.  Then I felt guilty until I realised that tomorrow I am leaving Jason and the children alone in the house for three days.  There would be no point in cleaning.  If I can actually open the front door on Sunday evening I will count myself blessed.  I feel much less guilty now, although I did wipe the sticky handprints off the kitchen door.
• I felt virtuous about having halved the mound of festering washing that is sulking in the corner of the kitchen until I opened the washing machine door to find I had accidentally stuffed a nappy in there too. I don’t know if you’ve ever washed a disposable nappy? Trust me when I tell you that it is not good, not good at all.  It is filled with some kind of gel bead stuff that soaks up wee and other fluids.  Unfortunately it also soaks up water from the washing machine until the nappy explodes weird gel substance all over your washing and the interior of your washing machine.  I opened the door and lots of wobbly, gunky clothes fell out.  I swore a lot.
• We have those very silly sinks in our house which don’t have proper sievey bits to stop things falling down. They have those smooth, round integral plug things that you open and shut by wiggling a little metal stalk on the tap.  This would be fine if we didn’t have children.  As it is, they are always wiggling the plugs shut and wandering off leaving the taps running and suchlike.  It is a nightmare.  I have removed the plug in the childrens bathroom sink, thus saving us a fortune having new ceilings, carpets, tiles, light fittings etc.  Unfortunately Oscar dropped Tallulah’s toothbrush down the gaping hole that is left behind and it is wedged so far down I cannot get it out.  Nor can my tiny brain compute how this will be done.  I do not have Stephen Hawking’s number on speed dial, so will have to wait till Jason gets home and confess.
• Oscar threw a load of Cadbury’s Cream Eggs around in the Londis shop, which did not go down well.  I had strategically moved him away from the sweet aisle, failing to notice that he was within reach of a pile of eggs by the till.  He shouted: ‘My no like it eggs! Eggs are not lubly.’ and pelted a handful about with gay abandon. Manoeuvering him out of the way so that I could mitigate the damage I nearly ran one of the stray eggs over with the wheels of the buggy.  We were not popular.
• His hands were cold on the way home and we have temporarily mislaid his mittens in an incredibly safe place.  I gave him my leather gloves trimmed with fur to wear.  He looked like a small murderer.  He thought this was fantastic and nearly caused an innocent cyclist to crash his bike as he leaned forward in his buggy as the bloke was coming towards us, waved his hideously begloved hands around and shouted; ‘Rrraaaahhhh! Be frightened bicycle man!’  It did the trick.  Oscar was hugely impressed with himself and refused to give up the gloves under any circumstances.

It’s only half past one! God alone knows what the rest of the day will bring.  I was discussing my week with a friend at school.  She asked me if it made me nervous contemplating Christmas looming next week.  I said that I am looking at this week as the dress rehearsal.  Everyone knows that the dress rehearsal is always shit if the production is going to be a roaring success. That’s my belief and I am sticking to it.