Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy(11)

12.15 a.m. ‘Mummy!’ Billy jerked self back to reality. Was difficult situation, undeniably: everyone poo- and sick-smeared, alarmed and retching. Ideal would be to separate children and fabrics/fluids and put both children in warm bath and find sheets. But what if pooing/vomiting continued? What then? Water could become toxic, and possibly cholera-filled, like open sewer in refugee camp.

12.16 a.m. Arrived at makeshift solution: placing plastic mat on bathroom floor with pillows, towels, etc. generally around.

12.20 a.m. Resolved to go down to washing machine (i.e. fridge to get wine).

12.24 a.m. Closed door and ran down.

12.27 a.m. Having cleared head with swig of wine, realized was immaterial washing sheets, etc. Only essential objective, surely, was to keep children alive until morning, ideally simultaneously avoiding nervous breakdown.

12.45 a.m. Realized wine, though fortifying head, had done opposite to stomach.

12.50 a.m. Threw up.

2 a.m. Billy and Mabel both now asleep on bathroom floor on and under towels, cleaned to a degree. Resolve simply to sleep next to them in poo- and sick-covered vaguely sexual nightie.

2.05 a.m. Experiencing pleasing sense of triumph, like general who has brought massacre, bloodbath, etc. back from brink, engineering peaceful solution: even starting to hear theme tune from Gladiator, seeing self as Russell Crowe, partially obscured by caption: ‘A Hero Will Rise’.

At same time, however, am unable to avoid sense that attempting any sort of erotic scenario with this sort of thing going on might not be a particularly good idea.





A NEW START – A NEW ME


Friday 20 April 2012

173lb, minutes set aside for meditation 20, minutes spent meditating 0.

2 p.m. Right. Have made a decision. Am going to completely change. Am going to return to Zen/New Age/self-help-book study and yoga, etc., starting from the inside not the outside, meditate regularly, and lose weight. Have got all set up with candle and yoga mat in bathroom and am going to quietly meditate and settle mind before taking kids to doctors, remembering to allow time to a) get snacks and b) locate missing car keys.

Also the other things am going to do are as follows:

I WILL

*Lose 30lb.

*Get on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp instead of feeling old and out of it because everyone except self is on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

*Stop being scared of turning on the television but instead simply locate and read instruction manuals for TV, Virgin box DVD remotes and buttons, so that TV becomes source of entertainment and pleasure rather than meltdown.

*Do regular Life Laundry, cleansing house of all unnecessary possessions, esp. cupboard under stairs, so is a place for everything and everything in its place in manner of Buddhist Zendo/Martha Stewart’s house.

*With above in mind, ask Mum to stop sending me unused handbags, ‘stoles’, Wedgwood ‘tureens’, etc., reminding her that age of rationing ended some time ago and is now space rather than possessions which is in short supply (at least in Western urban world).

*Start writing my Hedda Gabbler adaptation in order to have professional adult life again.

*Actually write said screenplay instead of spending half day setting off to look for something then wandering vaguely from room to room worrying about unanswered emails, texts, bills, play dates, go-kart parties, leg waxes, doctors’ appointments, parents’ evenings, babysitting schedules, strange noise from fridge, cupboard under stairs, reason why telly won’t work, then sitting down again realizing have forgotten what was looking for in the first place.

*Not wear same three things all the time, but instead go through wardrobe and put together fashionable ‘looks’ based on celebrities at airports.

*Clear cupboard under stairs.

*Find out why fridge is making that noise.

*Go on email for one hour only per day instead of spending entire day in helpless cyber-circle of email, news stories, Calendar, Google and shopping and holiday websites whilst texting, then not answering any of emails anyway.

*Not add Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and whatever to cyber-circle when have got on them.

*Deal with emails immediately and so that email becomes effective means of communication instead of terrifying Unexploded Email Inbox full of guilt trips and undetonated time-vampire bombs.

*Be better at looking after the children than Chloe the nanny.

*Establish regular routine with children so everyone knows where they are and what supposed to be doing, esp. self.

*Read parenting self-help books, including One, Two, Three . . . Better, Easier Parenting and French Children Don’t Throw Food in order to be better at looking after the children than Chloe.

*Be kinder to Talitha, Jude, Tom and Magda in return for their kindness to me.

*Go to Pilates once a week, Zumba twice a week, gym three times a week and yoga four times a week.

I WILL NOT

*Drink so much Diet Coke before yoga that entire yoga session becomes exercise in trying not to fart.

*Ever be late for school run.

*Do V-signs at people during school run.

*Get annoyed by dishwasher, tumble dryer and microwave beeping in attention-seeking manner to tell you they have finished, wasting time crossly imitating dishwasher by dancing round saying, ‘Oh, oh, look at me, I’m a dishwasher, I’ve washed the dishes.’

*Get annoyed with Mum, Una or Perfect Nicolette.

*Call Nicolette ‘Nicorette’.