Yet another celebrity mum is snapped stretching out on a beach in a skimpy bikini, three months after having a baby. I groan and push the offending magazine back into the rack, slinking out of the newsagent in despair. I try in vain to convince myself that she was never pregnant in the first place; […]
Grave Behaviour
The children and I stop at the church to visit my little boy, who died when he was just five weeks old. My surviving son is his twin, and we have regular conversations about why this happened, how far in the ground his brother is buried, whether he is allowed Haribo in heaven (I vote […]
Bath night
I love my children best when they’re fresh out of the bath. When the excesses of the day are beginning to fade, and sleep is sneaking up on them despite their attempts to thwart it. They bathe together but are dried separately, taking it in turns to slip out of the soapy water into my […]
Home comforts
I am a Bad Mother. And a Bad Wife. I’ve been both those things at various intervals over the years, but not generally at the same time. In fact I usually find I can either be a very good wife, at the expense of the children, or a very good mother, at the expense of […]
Anniversary Sex
It was our wedding anniversary last week, and my husband suggested we have sex. “Why?” I said. “Well, you know. Recreate our wedding night” I distinctly recall on the night of our wedding both being so rat-arsed we could scarcely put the key in the lock, let alone a rampant member in the correct orifice, […]
Motorway tail-backs and the surprising capacity of a nappy
We’re an hour into the stationary tail-back. The M40 snakes back through South Oxfordshire; an inert mass of cars filled with would-be shoppers. You know it’s bad when people start getting out of their cars, sitting on the hard shoulder with make-shift picnics and swapping numbers with the family in the Touran next to them. […]