(I’ll play the ‘I’m English’ card, brilliant)

I looked at my washing pile with glee, actual proper glee, glee that is usually only felt at winning the lottery, or hiring a manny, you know? That sort of glee. It was a pile of sheets. Big sheets. Not full to the brim with loads of tiny, impossibly tiny, teeny weeny things and odd socks. All of them, they’re always odd. I try and trick the washing machine by hiding the pair in a ball together, but it knows, it seeks out the weaker sock, and it chews it up and never spits it out again. Leaving it’s bereaved partner clinging terrified in the drum of doom. But there we go, at least the washing machine is semi-mended, enough that it’s washing things at least. The dishwasher still not, and I am bored now. I have, quite simply, had it. I have lost one and a half hours of the day again, and they're  all important hours. The dude needs to order a new part- this, when I was told, filled me with  utter dismay, he left leaving me feeling like a dead fish- gutted. I’ve been here before, the whole ‘ordering parts’ thing. I will not see sight nor sound of him till Easter, at the earliest.

My ‘cheeky’ (as they affectionately call her around these parts) toddler has been up to cutting tricks this week. One of my pot plants was shredded, the yucca too, she likes to cut up the dog water (?) although this is obviously less of an issue. She’s avoided self-haircuts this time round, which is always a positive, although my hair got a quick snip when I had my back turned. She took me by surprise attack “cut mummy’s hair”  she sing-songs, upon hearing this, I turn around swiftly, and see a clump of hair float towards the floor. I gasp, and she sees my face, and knows she’s done something not OK. Time out step, where she sits and sings a bit, shrugging her shoulders, talking to herself ‘didn’t cut mummy’s hair, no, me didn’t cut it’. No, absolutely not, it was the  big-bad-hairdressing ghost who has been bothering us since we moved in here…

I am to take Make-up lady to the vets, no, I meant to write hairdresser’s there. She reckons that the peroxide she used on her hair makes her look like a 'bad' person, or a ‘prostitute’-her words. Then she asked me for my opinion, what the hell? Don’t put me in that position, surely? I cannot lie at the best of times, easy times, at desperate times, let alone now. I pause, pretending I didn’t understand the question (I’ll play the ‘I’m English’ card, brilliant) only she knows I understood, and as that didn’t wash, I say slowly “well, maybe make a hairdresser’s appointment, and ask them to ‘tone it down’ a bit?” I cringe, why can I not just say she looks stunning, a veritable Goldie-locks, minus the three bears, and then be punished for lying later?? Some lies aren’t that bad…She humphs a bit, and rings the hairdresser S.O.S team. Damn me for the ‘toning it down a wee bit’ remark. Next time I’m straight up lying. Even if it means she walks the streets looking like a lady of the night.

Anyway, I must dash, collating leaflets to do, food shopping, washing, kids to collect from school, cupboard to paint, important phone calls to be made, make-up ladies to take places, toddlers to entertain before the bugrats return, animals to feed, ironing, and cooking to feed the masses who wait for no man, and that’s literally not even a zillionth of the week’s tasks. Oh for a many, although each time a mention this now, Alex looks wan, and suggests we hire a nanny instead…pointless hypothetical discussion, deciphering the sex of the nanny/manny who will never materialise. But what ever gets us through…!