Yes today I locked myself out of the flat for the third time in two weeks. We had a long, tiresome walk back from school with a broken pushchair  – the aluminium frame snapped last night and so it has been badly and hastily ‘fixed up’ (in the loosest distracted-husband-terms) with electrical tape and much hope – and horrible, horrible children doing bad things to each other. We did the grocery shop on the way to school, as sometimes I am wont to do when I go momentarily INSANE and I forget that the whole way home the bags will slip out of the bottom of the buggy onto the road and i will run over the packets of lamb chops and the fizzy water will roll into the patches of unspecified wet and then will explode when I open them. The bit at the bottom of the buggy where the shopping is meant to go is ripped so putting stuff in there means stuff just slides out the other side. It is really great. Each curb I lift the buggy over means something else slides out. Up, slide out, run over, bend over, pick it up, put it in again, up, side out other side, etc etc to infinity and beyond.

So we get home after this predictable little grocery/buggy dance, and of course the baby has been yelling and scratching my neck and so I am feeling quite hot and sweaty and tired. We get to the top of the stairs and there is no key. And Barnaby and Noah and a little bit me are busting for a wee. And Mark is Somewhere A Bit Far Away. So Noah runs down the stairs and takes all his clothes off and wees up against our front door. Barnaby holds onto his crotch and circles the broken buggy with increasing speed and a mad look in his crossed eyes. I do a bit of swearing, and Custard walks out into the road. I call Mark and he says “Why haven’t you remembered to hide the spare key?” and I say “Now is not the time to debate the possible reasons which have led to me having made the regrettable hid-the-key omission. PLEASE JUST COME!”. And he does, and everyone empties bladders/puts clothes back on/spits fizzy water onto the windows, etc etc. And it is all a big FAIL.

What I Have Learnt From Today:

To put the spare key somewhere outside where I can get it when I next lock myself out. Probably sooner rather than later.

Not to do shopping in the real world ever again. Order everything online. Make myself a cosy nest out of ripped-up telephone books and just lie there with the Mac and let stuff come to mama.

To get a new pushchair. Faster than you can say “I have too many kids for inner city London”.

There are, of course, happier things to report. Namely, that there is a pub called The Commander in Hereford Road. It used to be a Slug & Lettuce. Now it is a beautiful Oyster Bar and Chop House, or something. It has two marvellous things – firstly, a free creche on the weekends, so you can slurp your wild garlic soup while the offspring are watching telly upstairs with a probably vastly underpaid babysitter (almost like a date in the day), and secondly, there is a waiter there who is Uncommonly Goodlooking. Like a mix of Jason Patric from The Lost Boys days, Mark Ruffalo and a little bit of Johnny Depp, all mixed together in the most saucy of ways. Honestly – go there, eat the soup, lose the chilluns and fall in love. I did.

I have also ditched BookClub tomorrow night because I have something else Very Important on. A Skype meeting. Which is a lame excuse, but the book was decidedly average and the women scare me a bit.

I have excellent toffee-coloured toes and fingers. I went to the salon on Sunday to tidy up my feet after a long, pregnant winter and got up-saled to an embarrassing degree. I am the unintentional new owner of Decleor moisturiser, Jessica nail polish and cuticle cream. But what was most astonishing about the salon visit was that I seriously considered Botox. Yes, seriously thought it may be time, and I may be able to justify the cost. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

Oh, Madonna night on Glee. Gotta go!