Supermarket Sweep

At long last, life is looking up: Budgens unveil plans for their 9th annual Drunken Trolley Dash, 2.54pm, Thursday.

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Having once wet myself on an ex-boyfriend's chair, it's probably fair to say that I'm no stranger when it comes to the odd drunken incident or two.

In fact (if my fingertips can stop blushing long enough to impart their shame), my 20s were a veritable world record attempt in filling phoneboxes with hive-breaking tales: starting with the more standard pulling of pigs and rolling out of unpaid taxis, going through a brief spate of shoplifting Hello* from the local garage, and ending with a merry dance involving some tramps and a lute player on the Embankment plus the odd broken bone or two.

Jesus. It's probably quite clear that I shouldn't drink.

Happily, since entering my third decade and unfolding the joys of motherhood, the ferocity of my drunken antics has been somewhat dampened. After all, it's pretty hard to get ratarsed and make guinea pig noises in restaurants when you're in every night weighed down with the responsibility of childcare. Plus, Lucy tends to get really annoyed with me when I try to tell strangers on the bus that I love them, so I've pretty much given up.

Or so I thought.

A couple of Thursdays ago however, I managed to get reasonably merry with Lucy's dad as we struggled through the very last showdown of our relationship. Finding the wine stocks dwindling, I ventured out to my local Budgens for another bottle. Swaying round the isles for a while, I also managed to get some other essentials, which for some reason I had neglected to ever purchase before: two large Battenburg cakes, some corn plasters, a sewing kit and a make your own fairy wings set.

Perhaps there was a hint in my other shopping that I was a little bit more drunk than I'd thought. Or perhaps the biggest hint came when I got to the till and loudly accused the lady in front of me of stealing my bread (which, cunningly I hadn't even managed to put in my basket, let alone drag to the till).

The poor accused woman, of course, looked at me as if I was slightly deranged. Sadly, the look turned to something more like pity when I demanded that she turn out all her shopping bags and clothing, and angrily slurred for the manager to come and sort the "shoplifting pickpocket" out.

How on earth I thought a pickpocket would get a huge loaf of bread down their trousers I do not know. Hell, I'm not even sure she was wearing trousers. But I was still muttering about it as they saw me to the door.

Needless to say, I haven't been back, which is slightly ridiculous given that it's the nearest shop to me. However, I am working on my fake moustache and french accent so that I can venture in there again: three weeks is a long time to go without bread, after all.

*Please accept my apologies for my choice of reading matter. Must have been extremely pissed that night.

Blight Club

Sadly, Gingerbread Man had forgotton the first costume rule of Blight Club.












This morning, Lucy and I decided to forgo the excitement of our weekly music gathering, and traipse along instead to the local Gingerbread group.

For the happily uninitiated amongst you, Gingerbread offers support for the more, erm, alone parenting folk out there. In retrospect, I should probably have joined the second my urine inked its blue truth along the pregnancy test. But, being undeniably stubborn, not to mention flakily hopeful, I've managed to ignore everything and put it off until now.

Useless personality traits aside, another reason for my delay has been, well, unmitigated terror. It's weird and bad and scary enough joining normal baby groups with their tireless renditions of Wind the Bobbin Up (now sadly an absolute favourite of mine, and well deserving of its no. 3 spot in my personal top ten of songs). But the thought of sitting in a room watching 15 or so single women pouring their partnerless bile into tea-cups and dunking their digestives into the bitterness of desertion has never really been up there on my list of things to do before I die.

Fortunately, the envisaged bile-fest was not in evidence this morning. True enough, there was plenty of tea, and there were certainly a fair few women in attendance, but not a single wisp of embittered gossip was to be had. Not even a smidgen: not a single tale of an ex-husband caught "testing" condoms with the next door neighbour; no shared experiences of previous partners flying off for yet another exotic whore tour; and not even the remotest breath of extra-marital breeding in Sainsbury's carpark on dogging Wednesdays.

Ah well. No gossip, just lots of dull advice on housing and benefits instead. Mind you, it does look like they've got a slightly more interesting schedule for the rest of the year, if the "Keep Your Pecker Up" leaflet that I was given is anything to go by:

For example, every third Wednesday there's a tartan-clad outing to Hampstead Heath for a major reenactment of the battle of Colloden. On Thursdays there's a cunningly named "sew and sew" afternoon, which will give me the opportunity to finally finish off that fluorescent, 3-D version of the Bayeux Tapestry that I've been working on (oh to be able to find the right shade of yarn for a popped eyeball!). And to top the activities off, every second Friday, the group apparently have ten sambucca shots each and take it in turns to pin the tale on Stephen Hawking.

Truly, I can't wait.

Olympic Bid

Lucy, modelling the new British Swim Team 2010 kit*; 1.24pm, yesterday

*Kindly sponsored by the Steroid and Tan Fan! Association

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Do forgive the slight hiatus in blogging: for reasons far too complex and acid-steeped to mention, my mind has been somewhat otherwise engaged of late.

However, in amongst the wide swathes of life's crapness, I'm pleased to report that Lucy and I have been doing our bit to promote British excellence in sport; by competing in the astounding and, erm, challenging event of baby swimming.

Now then, as is manifest in the sadness of my thighs, I'm clearly no expert in the whys and wherefores of any kind of sporting venue. Nonetheless even to my naive eye (and sorrowfully dimpled leg), if the state my local pool is anything to go by then Britain has more than a moonwalk to go before our facilities can pass anything like an Olympian muster.

Entry into my pool is, you see, a bit like well, walking into a chlorine-scented abattoir. A set of cheery, vacuum-packed doors permit entry into the changing room. Here, the flesh of 20 purple-flecked mothers is revealed - all nervously preparing their young on a set of verruca-soaked bassinets, ranged jauntily alongside the sweating, petri-dish walls.

I could go on through the bath of horrors. But fortunately it seems that Lucy has not inherited such a jaundiced view of either the world or of North London's amphibious attractions.

She has, in fact, been unrelentingly joyous at each session: gurgling as yet another arc of stranger's wee is aimed straight onto her towel; chortling when dunked under the sweltering (and slightly yellowey) water; gleefully chewing on the chemicaled floats; and quite literally pissing herself laughing as she yet again manages to undo my bikini top in front of the Polish New Man Dad who insists on calling my daughter Lucian and keeps telling me how "handsome" she is.

Ahh - gender-confusion, a risk of legionnaire's verucca and the exposure of my hideous body - all be damned. As long as Lucy is so clearly delighted I guess it's worth it, and there's always the glory of British sport to consider.

I'll just have to remember to pack the goose fat, plastic socks and slightly less atollian swimwear for next week. Not sure I'll be setting up camp next to Polish New Man Dad again, though.