‘How difficult can it be to get to the gym at 11am?’ I mused as I lay in bed until 10am. By 10.30am, it was time scramble out the door, pushing all thoughts aside that an intermediary Hatha Yoga class might be too much of a stretch.

Mat and block in hand, I prepared for the class by deep breathing. The teacher arrived, I didn’t recognise the teacher, well I wouldn’t, would I after such lengthy absence. Alarm bells were ringing, this was no bubbly, smiley and forgiving yoga bunny. He was small, muscular and obviously a dancer. The class was packed with similar types, except for me, a good five inches taller and probably five years less spritely. He began demonstrating the moves without the hint of a smile or warmth. I was scared, but hey ho and off we went – until I hit a stop.

‘Try and visualise the space between your genitals and anus’ the teacher said.

I looked up and gulped and then pretended to visualise anything else, and breathing deeply pushed all thoughts of anuses and genitals out of my mind.

Ten minutes into the class, our bodies and faces were contorted. I don’t remember yoga being like this I thought. It was then that I caught the eye of someone else. She gave me a nervous smile that broke into a conspiratorial grin. I had to look away for fearing of collapsing into fit of hysterical giggles with my leg stuck behind my ear.

As the class drew on, I was beginning to wonder if I’d last the full 90 minutes. Muddling through, I knew that the real contortions were yet to come.

‘So put your arm down and bring your leg over your elbow like so. And then lift your body with both hands off the floor.’

We all looked at him, the now despised teacher, open mouthed. There were gasps. There were groans.

‘And next we stretch this way.’ He motioned half heartedly, ‘But I can’t do it to the full extent because I’m injured.’

‘What a cheat!’ I howled internally.

He left the room, and everyone stopped, it was akin to a class of naughty school children. He’d pushed us to the point of rebellion. He returned and everyone resumed their poses, he was none the wiser as we continued to twist and bend and stretch. And then it was time for headstands. I don’t like them so opted out. As did nearly everyone else.

It was time to relax and as we all lay on our mats in the shapes of starfish, I heard a trumpeting sound. Someone had farted rather tunefully in our relaxation zone – the atmosphere was ruined in more ways than one.

I bet it was him, it was after all, the only time I saw him smile.

Earlier this year I stayed in a plush hotel in Brighton and had a lazy breakfast in the restaurant the next day. It was very elegant, and then I arrived. As I lay out the Sunday papers, I made a grab for the mags. But when I got to the Sunday Times plastic wrapped magazines, I couldn’t rip open the pack. I tugged, pulled and then finally tried to rip it open. Suddenly the whole thing gave way rather over enthusiastically. In a microsecond my arm punched my cup of tea which flew up into the air and did a 360 degree loop the loop, spraying tea everywhere, on all and sundry around me. I was mortified and told that I had gone red.

‘How red?’
‘Really red, like bright red.’
‘I’m just embarrassed’
I was quietly giggling uncontrollably behind a magazine but soon stopped. My face did feel hot. In fact, being a ‘nifty’ traveller, I’d packed some Space NK samples and tried out a new face cream, it was reacting and burning. As I put my hands to my face I could feel deep raging heat, and even worse, I was swelling up.

‘Maybe it’s the cream I just tried out.’
‘It must be, you missed a bit, there’s one white stripe on your neck.’
I rummaged in my handbag for a mirror and surveyed my new look. Two blue dots on a tomato – that’s what my bloody face looked like.

‘Crikey, we’ve got to get out of here!’ I squawked.
I hurriedly scooped up the papers and hoped to sneak out of the restaurant unnoticed. No chance.

I looked around for the exit. There, ahead of me, was a gap between two tables to get through. I eyed it up to see if I could get through with my big bag and bundle of newspapers. My face was hurting, my eyes were smarting with embarrassment and I tried to make a nifty twist between the two tables.

No such luck.

My wiggle was more elephantine than I’d anticipated. I heard water splashing and turned around to see, much to my horror, that I’d up ended a vase of flowers on the table of two guests eating their breakfast.

‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry’ I said as I turned round to face them. I tried to dry them off with napkins, but at this point, they were so afraid of what might happen next, they held onto them for dear life.

‘Not to worry’ They looked at me and laughed, they’d obviously already spotted my tea cup disaster – well out of the packed restaurant of 400 or so people, I think the whole place had.
‘You’re obviously having a bad morning!’ they giggled.

I spotted their drenched Sunday Times.
‘Here, why don’t you have mine?’
‘Oh no need, it’s fine’ said the man.
‘Oh no, please have it, I’m not reading that section anyway.’
‘Oh, so you just want to dump your unwanted sections on us then – and the vase?’
‘Umm, no, it’s not meant like that at all, sorry I have to go, I’m really sorry.’

I’d outstayed my welcome, the mood was turning, it was time to make a real dash for it.

Cue sharp exit from me, now with hands to my reddened face. It’s possibly the only time in my life I have really wished I could be abducted by aliens -I looked like something from the attack of the killer tomatoes. I know for definite, I can never show my face there again.

But being me, life is just one endless source of amusement for those around me.

I walked out of my local beauty salon recently with the staff stifling their laughter – I’d had another one of my famous ‘klutz’ runs.  Moments before I had sat up from a wax and found a large lump (pizza sized of said wax) attached to my leg.  I thought it was a growth and nearly screamed the place down, and then, as I went to leave the room the beautician had to stop me as I had a velcro hairband stuck on my head – it took a few pulls to remove. How it got there I don’t know, I certainly don’t wax my head.

After popping to the loo and grabbing my handbag, I pottered back upstairs only to miss the top step and make a very loud upward landing.  I was greeted with raised eyebrows by the manicurists and their customers.  I couldn’t help laughing and as I got to the till it had become a full on and infectious giggle.

If you see me out in public, you’re best to run for the hills in case you get dragged into one of my calamitous dramas.

Incredibly, this story I am writing is post number 149 which means over the last year I’ve probably written around 75,000 words here. That combined with the other writing on sites and blogs I do probably amounts to around 120,00 words – no mean feat when you look at it. But it’s my no means been a difficult challenge, it’s been a total blast and has helped me get to grips with more than just how to click ‘publish’.

So back to where it all began. Facing a particularly difficult situation; no job come January, a Christmas without my daughter and and the end of my work contract wind down, the months appeared before me like an abyss. It was hard not to feel alienated and a social outcast. Even if I wasn’t one, I felt it. It was no suprise I succumbed to an awful attack of the flu. That Friday, the fever was so bad that I was unable to leave the house for three days, and fortunately Miniminx was away for the weekend.

With no choice but to live online while snivelling and bedridden, I just about managed to survive on what was in the house, ordered some online supplies and kept writing. Just a blog post each day, but it was something.

At the end of day three with the tissue box empty and the lemsip packets crumpled, there was a knock on the door and a groaning ghostlike-heap greeted the delivery man. Yes, it was me, and it was at that point I had a revelation.

Nothing was going to be the same again – I’d found a new tool for survival and wasn’t going to give it up.

Blogging might be easy, but getting started is the hardest part. I determined to say anonymous. And by blog name summed up the sense of futility at that time. My high hopes had been nixed and my minxy life crushed. Clown that I am, I set about writing with humour not despair, it took me a while to get it right and it certainly lifted the dark clouds and put the light back behind my eyes.

There is something really unnerving about putting a story out there in this new cyber world they call ‘the cloud’. I imagined my blog posts would be like raindrops falling from this cloud and evaporate before even hitting the ground and, in reality, no one would ever read it.

But they did and hey ho, I got a visitor or two, and thought

‘Oh my god, I wrote a blog post and someone bloody ready it – shit!’

….and then I got a comment, and thought

‘Um, so what happens next? This is quite scary. Who are these people, they have funny bloggy names.’

I had a look around and found other bloggers. Mummies. With beautiful blogs, stickered with awards. I had discovered the Mumosphere, or rather, it has discovered me.

‘Ahem.’ I thought. ‘Well goodness me. I see I’m not alone here.’

I replied to comments, it was like making invisible friends with lovely people. It was a miracle. I was no longer alone at my laptop.

‘Wow. Wahaaay.’

I had a new job.

I had become the accidental Mummy blogger.

I’m quite jumpy so everyone in this neighbourhood is used to my occasional squawks but this was a corker.

I saw a spider.
I screamed.
Then I screamed again.
And then I screamed really loudly. And then some more.

This was no ordinary arachnid. Huge, leggy and fast. I had spotted it on the stairs before and sneakily left it for the cleaner to hoover up. I thought it was languishing in the Dyson but the bloody thing has, or rather had, reappeared.

Let me rewind to the early evening that was going alright and then started to go a little bit more than wrong. After finishing work, cooking Miniminx her dinner, clearing up, sticking some more stuff in the oven (still got NTA) and then getting Miniminx to practise her guitar, I decided to get the bath on and bring the chaos of the day to a close. But it was only the beginning.

We went upstairs to gather bathrobes and towels and I noticed by my foot a massive spider. For the first time in years, I had a phobic reaction and leapt in the air screaming. And like Mother, like daughter, so did Miniminx.

‘Spidaarghhh.’ I wailed, I was reduced to minimalistic sentences.
‘Aaaarghhh’
‘AAAAAAAAAAAArgggh’ I replied and in a state of heightened anxiety.
‘Where is it?’
‘Go to your room and I’ll….’ I looked around frantically. It had gone.
But where? It was in my bedroom, with me!
‘AAAAAARGHHH – it’s chasing me in my room’
Miniminx was in fits of laughter at this point. I tried to let on I was just hamming it up but I was really petrified.

I looked again, and yet again, it had gone. And then I saw the long legged horror sneak under the stand alone towel rail in the hall.

‘We have to call someone – the bath is going to run over and I’m not going to go in there while this thing is on the loose’
‘I’ll get the phone’
Realising how ridiculous I sounded, and also that I’d never live it down if someone had to sort this out, I momentarily came to my senses.

‘No, no, we can’t do that. I’ll sort this out’ I said trying to be/sound grown up, after behaving like a teenage moron…’Just get in the bathroom’ I said calmly.
She did. I stayed put and reached out to move the towel rail. I slid it around, gingerly, on the axis of one leg. As it gracefully arced in what should have been a revealing pirouette, there was nothing on the carpet. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing!!?? I peeked over the stair rail and looked down at the stairs. There it was. It had jumped down. Great a bloody massive base jumping spider in my house!

‘Oh my god’
‘What?’
‘It’s so big, it’s walking up the bloody stairs.’

I’ve never seen anything like it. Like a horror movie. It was coming for me like the Alien after Sigourney Weaver.

I ran in my bedroom to find a large book – I was going to flatten that thing. Vogue? Too good. Heat? Too trashy. I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence? Big enough? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Ironic enough? Oh bloody hell, Yes.

With a giggling child on the verge of becoming quite scared I had to rein it in. Channelling De Niro in Taxi Driver, I turned the tables on that eight legged piece of nothing. I was going to get it before it got me.

‘Oh come on then! You want some?!’ I shouted at it mockingly as it plodded up the stairs one by one. I turned to see the bemused look on my child’s face, there’s really no turning back once you’ve got this far, I had to follow through to the bitter end instead of giving in to hysteria again.

My heart was pounding. I tried to lighten the moment.
‘We can do this darling! We’re a team!’ I grimaced. ‘We don’t need to be scared.’

Three steps away from the landing, the stairs turn, I could see it, it was on it’s way up and heading to meet me.

‘Where is it?’

Silence.

‘Come on…let me at you….!’

It arrived. I lunged, I slam dunked. I stamped on the book.

We cheered.
We waited to see if the book moved.

I waited ten minutes before picking up the book.
Victory was mine, it was flushed.

And oh hell, the oven was still on….
‘Oh my god, the food’s going to burn…’
More laughter from the bathroom as I ran downstairs like a maniac.

Midweek madness, there’s nothing quite like it.

Oh, and on a good day, I can be quite like Surprised woman….and by the way, sorry Amy, we still love you and your book.

Throughout the Summer I had great plans to overhaul my life – to really make the back bedroom a fabulous walk in wardrobe instead of a dumping ground, to go through all my paperwork and get on top of things. But I confess, there was rose to be drunk – barbecues to be cooked, Summer was just too much fun and sadly, being the child of chaos that I am, I’ve obviously not done it at all. .

After two days of enforced rest with suspected wine swine flu, I decided it was high time to streamline a few things, be a bit more orderly and grow up….

In fact, I have surpassed myself and outsourced the whole lot. I kid you not.

I had to – I mean really had to. You see there is nothing worse than having no food in the house is there, especially when you have a growing child who is constantly hungry – I mean hollow legs is her middle name. Or waking up to no milk for the essential morning cuppa (I can’t function without at least two massive mugs of tea before I leave the house) and the bowl or five of cereal that Miniminx quaffs.

Then, while trying to get myself ready for work, even worse, finding not only the cupboards and fridge bare, but also the wardrobe and I’m rummaging around to find something in a reasonable state to wear when most of my clothes have been hung up on the floor. It just can’t go on.

Yes, I’m a slacker, and that’s why I work. I would make such a bad, bad housewife that it terrifies me and everyone else around me at just the thought. People have seen me hoover and taken the damned thing off me – they even shout ‘You don’t know what you’re doing!’ Imagine that would you? Do you know how it feels to be so perplexing without even trying? It’s embarrassing. And as for washing up, my friends who have seen me in action just smile glibly when I offer to muck in at their houses – as if I’ve offered to straighten their teeth manually.

I’m the kind of person that uses every pot and pan in the house to cook a meal and takes childish delight in moving me and my delightful mess around with me everywhere I go. A total and utter clutter nutter. It’s just the way I am and I decided to get professional help.

So here goes, here’s my 4 Step Programme for Nomestic Godesses and believe you me, it’s working:

Step 1 Fresh Food
Abel&Cole are now taking care of fruit and veg intake (oh and nice organic wine and lots of other sumptuous things) and delivering to my front door weekly – all packaging recycled weekly (no plastic either)

Step 2 Milk, Milk, Milk
Who would have thought that I would find a man called Dean who would drop by my house every so often and make sure I could have a nice cuppa every day. Well I have, by some chance google search, I found Dairy Crest online so now have a milkman who delivers organic milk three times a week and juice too. And no packaging – just give it all back when it’s finished and the bin stays empty!

Step 3 Clean Clothes and Bed Linen
No more dragging sacks of clothes around or wrestling with king size duvet covers and sheets – there’s a new and very reasonably priced laundry and dry cleaning company Wilton Green which picks up and delivers. They even did loads of stuff for free on my first order. I absolutely love them – they even put my clothes on my favourite wooden hangers so none of that annoying dry cleaner hanger stuff any more (and the bin stays empty again).

Step 4 Clean House
I hate mess, it depresses me, and once every few months I go into a zen like trance and clean the house from top to bottom but it’s only for the novelty. Imagine my delight when I got a text from my cleaner. Oh yippe yay she is back in business after a stint selling kitchens that didn’t quite work out…so I’m making use of her as much as I can and the house is clean and sparkly.

And what’s next? Ooh, lets have a declutter. Or maybe I’ll just bag everything up and shove it in the back bedroom…

She’s tagged me that Tara Cain…and I’m playing along because she has made me laugh myself silly. I refer to one of her Wordless Wednesday posts, which particulary strikes a chord today as it’s 11pm, the school holiday and I have two 9 year olds making a camp in the living room right now (hence I’m demoted to the kitchen table …)

So for all you fab blogging ladies, here you are – you’re tagged and I’m doing it because you are at least two, three or all of these a) I’ve actually met you! b) I love your blog (that applies to all of you) c) you are interesting and unique and that means something d) you have given me awards e) you’ve given me great support … sorry sorry but it’s not me that gets the blame …

PartMummyPartMe
WhostheMummy
YummyMammy
VioletPosy
Brits in Bosnia
Havealovelytime
LizJarvis
English Mum
LondonBaby
NobleSavage
AlphaMummy
PottyMummy

Here are my questions and you my lovelies are going to have to answer them too:

1. Who is the hottest movie star?

Has to be Johhny Depp or Benicio de Toro or Cary Grant or Keanu Reaves or…brown eyes black hair every time

2. Apart from your house and your car, what’s the most expensive item you’ve ever bought?

Would have to be dental work – gold teeth/porcelain implants(soooo bling) close to 5 figures for my dental work…work done in Harley Street and I am a wimp so I employed SedateMe to administer the lovely giggly drugs and was high as a kite for hours until the pain kicked in

3. What’s your most treasured memory?

Too many to mention which is why I always have a secret smile and sometimes snicker when I’m on my own

4. What was the best gift you ever received as a child?

Ooooh, now that would have to be a doll’s house. My Dad asked me and my sister what we DIDN’T want for Christmas. So I cottoned on to the sly old fox and got the joke, my sister didn’t and asked for a Yamaha Organ….she was a handful anyway, but Christmas day was bedlam that year. I was the happy one ) We’ve often thought of sending the organ to Damian Hirst to include in one of his formaldehyde tanks…or was that my sister?

5. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made?

Today? Yesterday? Life’s full of mistakes, I learn from them.

6. 4 words to describe yourself.

One of a kind

7. What was your highlight or lowlight of 2008?

Going out there and doing it – lots of travel for work and pleasure; Vegas, California, Amsterdam, road trip across France and back, Ibiza, Berlin, moving by the river and changing my career – 2009 is reaping the benefits

8. Favourite film?

The Big Lebowski for laughter, Eternal Sunshine to bring me back to Earth, The End of the Affair to make me keep faith, The Godfather II is the don…

9. Tell me one thing I don’t know about you.
Oh this popped out of my unchained gob today: I tried to break into a safe at Scotland Yard while drinking whisky and smoking a cigar…it was a long time ago…the safe remained safe

10. If you were a comic book/strip or cartoon character, who would you be?

I’ve never stripped for the general public and if I did it would be very comical and cartoon like – I used to get called Olive Oil a lot.

Here you go honey bunnies….don’t blame me, blame Tara Meme…..

Here are your questions so off you go and do the same and I think as an added Minxiness, you should add question 11 to the mix, What was your latest indulgence?

Now you go girls, when you have the time and don’t forget the tagging, we need to see how far this one can go:

1. Who is the hottest movie star?

2. Apart from your house and your car, what’s the most expensive item you’ve ever bought?

3. What’s your most treasured memory?

4. What was the best gift you ever received as a child?

5. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made?

6. 4 words to describe yourself.

7. What was your highlight or lowlight of 2008?

8. Favourite film?

9. Tell me one thing I don’t know about you.

10. If you were a comic book/strip or cartoon character, who would you be?

11. What was your latest indulgence?

TTFN x

I often find Miniminx creating a little fashion ensemble for our beloved prodigal pet Shelley.

She is pictured here, superstyle in hot pink raybans and languishing on a bed of super skinny organic dwarf beans.

Stylist: Miniminx Photographer: Nixdminx Accessories: Sainsburys, model’s own

It’s not that I don’t get out much.

I’ve been all over the social-meeja-blogandbeer-scape this week and I’m also popping to Butlins for their Tweet Up in a couple of weeks. I just can’t get enough of it in fact!

What’s so amazing about all this stuff is there’s room for everyone and it’s not just powerful as a new media (think blogs/twitter/facebook/myspace et al) it’s really getting people together and empowering people to connect and share in new ways.

A few weeks ago I went to SMCLondon and was pretty gobsmacked. VioletPosy recommended it to me some time ago and I offered to guest blog. I met a lot of very cool people with a lot interesting things to say. In fact, I hadn’t felt such positive energy among a bunch of people for a long time. This reminded me of the early days of the dot com boom and it’s a totally invigorating feeling and anitdote to the credit crunch.

So this week, I hightailed to my old hometown; Shoreditch, and popped in to see Vanessa and Katie at The Sway event downstairs at The Great Eastern Dining Rooms. Oh heavens above, this was certainly one step close to career nirvana and an evening full of highjinx. I have fond memories of the venue, when it first opened I had lunch with a fashionista friend and we drooled at Isabella Blow who was dining delicately in the corner, and dressed exquisitely.

The Sway brings a touch of Sex and the City to blogging – I kid you not, it was a very glamorous evening and lots of amazing people there too – the chicks who click are hipsters. My Armani jacket (it’s out of the wasdrobe again!!) and killer heels certainly got a run for their money. I was quite taken with Deluxe – a site I think a lot of you out there probably know already, and if not should check out. There was also a free bar and some lovely canapes provided by the sponsor Skimlinks and I was impressed with the company’s slick social networking products which I hope to look into more.

On the same night, there was the London Bloggers meet up at Shish! on Old Street – another flashback to days and nights gone I thought. As The Sway wrapped up, a few of us went to the Meet Up. It was a good crowd and sadly I’d missed the speaker. I got a chance to chat to all of the people there and had some very big laughs too. Andy who hosts it is great fun as are the other bloggers who I met.

It’s a good time to be a blogger!

Thanks to Katherine at Supply and Demands for this lovely cuppa. Such a beautiful cup and saucer, so dainty and sweet, but never judge a cup by it’s saucer honeys. My one contains two packets of Proplus, half a can of redbull and a double espresso but you’d never notice….

As you all know……..I’m very, very tired, and the rules are here and I’m going to do my best to post 10 but my eyelids may not allow, so keep this for now…

Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.

Pass the award to 10 other blogs that you have newly discovered. Remember to contact the blogger to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Well number one goes to the Good Charlotte…tea(sic) hee -

She’s here at anknelandburblets.com – lovely design and a lovely lady (I know she likes coffee in the morning…but I’m sure she’ll appreciate this cuppa!

Glamumous – Fabulous, glamorous, I’m-so-very-jealous, have a cuppa on me….

I love these hardworking ladies at Totsy, what a blog

littlemummy.com She’s new to me, she’s funny and snappy and snazzy

Justaplanerideaway - This pan handler, she’s plane great…sorry…bad puns!

Peter at pressofficeparents.blogspot.com – really good to see people blogging about Parentline Plus and I think this is great – stick the kettle on will ya?

Sticky fingers because this post I’ve linked to made me laugh out loud – it’s just sublime!

This is a great one – Mollychicken – and I am hoping Madame will knit me a tea cup too

Dulwich Mum has put us all to rights on how to deal with Swine Flu so she deserves a nice cuppa too

and another new one to me, 3kidsnojob – talking swine again….I’m sure tea boosts the immune system…

Take the time Miniminx had a school trip to the beach. With bucket and spade, wearing her very cute stetsun sunhat, carrying a bag with a swimming costume and all the associated beach paraphernalia, we walked to school. She actually skipped and sang ‘The sun had got his hat on.’ all the way. Lovely.

We arrived a bit early and bumped into the head master.

‘Good morning’ big cheesey grins all round.
‘Hello’
‘Do you know where the coach is?’
‘Ummmm, coach? What coach…?’
‘For the trip today, the one for year 3.’
‘Ooooh, the trip.’ at this point I knew something was up
‘It’s next week’ Shit, shit, shit, what an idiot.

I covered my mouth with my hand and feigned coughing as a foil to the hysterical laughter I needed to quell. Two big blue eyes look up at me, one very cute mouth pouts and trembles. Cue big blobby sobs from Miniminx. Cue me cringeing all day at work. Two years later we can laugh about it together (I still laugh about it alone…what a meannie).

And then last month, we got back from Ibiza at midnight with Elizabethan Dress up Day at school in the morning. I got up early and made a paper ruff and dressed Miniminx in her garb. We got to school a few minutes late and had a peek into her classroom.
28 kids in white shirts and grey skirts sat on the carpet looking at the teacher.
Oh bugger….Miniminx gave me a silent howl and cue big blobby sobs.
Double bugger.

‘Ssssssh, they’ll hear you, let’s sneak out and get you home and changed.’

We ran home, I rang the school.

‘There’s no dress up day today, nothing in the diary sorry’

Confounded, I got her back into her uniform and then we hightailed it back to school. We got to the classroom and discovered that it actually was dress up day and the kids were getting changed after lunch. We had that instant Mother-daughter telepathy, locked eyes and shook our heads – the uniform was staying on for the rest of the day! I walked home for a medicinal coffee or four after two hours of behaving like a headless chicken – at least I didn’t have a job to go to.

And now, I’m back in the world of work. It’s a change and days are much more regimented. I woke up this morning to the alarm and got up after another cheeky few minutes sleep. I woke up little sleepyhead Miniminx and started the usual prework pick and pack malarky – lunch box, healthy snack, drinks, swim kit etc. Then I checked the time on my phone – surely it was nearing 8am. It was 6.20am. An extra 100 minutes were a bonus, so I decided (yes, very Doris Day of me) to do some baking. Raspberry and blackberry wheatfree muffins for breakfast and some flapjack for the lunchbox.
I even took a packed lunch to work for myself.
I even managed to get Miniminx in the bath and hairwashed BEFORE school.
With everything shipshape and ahoy, I booked a cab and we were out the door heading to school and Miniminx was ready to rock and roll at breakfast club.

We walked across the sunny playground, we smiled, we chatted. Miniminx waved at her friend. She stopped walking and looked at her friend again who was looking over at us curiously. Then she looked down. And so did I.

The horror.
FLIP FLOPS!!!
FOUR FLIPPING FLIP FLOPS!!!!

We had both forgotten to put shoes on.

Miniminx became hysterical. I mean big sobbing blobs of tears all over my new dress, she was mortified.

‘I’m – wear – ing – flip -flops ! MUMMMMMMMMMMMM’
‘Whoopsy daisy, how did that happen?’
‘I CAN’T GO IN TO SCHOOL LIKE THIS!!!’
‘Darling, it’s too late to go home and change,’
‘I have to go home now’
‘Can’t you wear your PE shoes’
‘I don’t have them at schooooooooooooool’
‘Darling, it’s a genuine mistake, no one will tell you off.’

Into breakfast club we went – it’s like Ministry of Sound in the good old days, but for under 10s – but the poor little thing was inconsolable. We chatted, she calmed down and we said good bye.

I left the playground under a cloud and sporting a tear-stain pattern on my new dress. Shit.

When I picked her up, I asked how she’d got on with the flip flops and she told me she had borrowed someone else’s shoes and a pair of socks and it was all fine in the end.

There were lots of ladies wearing flip flops in the office today. I sat down at my new desk, I looked down at my feet, without a trace of smugness, thinking flip flip, flop flop…where’s the coffee, I’ve done a day’s work already.