First up, best I spit my exciting news out.

I have a Mulberry Alexa. Yes. And now it has sold out again. I am so zeitgeist, it hurts. One day, when iPhoto actually works, you will see my Alexa, and you may feel a twinge of envy. You may also think it is a completely average brown bag, but then you would be missing out on the MAGIC. The magic that is an overpriced, celebrity-endorsed bag. Is it a satchel? Is it a shoulder bag? Is it a squashy reference to the Bayswater? Do normal people care? No, probably not. Ah well. Sigh SIGH happy sigh of love…I stroke you, Alexa, in manner of a precious fluffy cat.

But anyway, enough about my new fabulous illicit purchase. I was having a think the other day, and I remembered this:

There was an old woman,
Who lived in a shoe;
She had so many children,
She didn’t know what to do.
She gave them some broth,
Without any bread;
She whipped them all soundly,
And sent them to bed.

Doesn’t that sound uncannily like it was written about me? (I know the world does not ACTUALLY revolve around me, but still). It is practically My Own Personal Theme Rhyme. Broken down, let me extrapolate:

1. I am not yet an old woman, but I am 32, which puts me in my fourth decade, and it is undeniable that my face over the past year has begun to slip downwards. It looks like it is falling off my face a little bit, stealthily and sneakily. And that mean hair stylist did point out a patch of grey. So not ‘old’ yet, but getting closer and closer to the cliff-edge of non-youth.

2. I do not live in a shoe, but the six of us do live in a two bedroom flat. It is quite roomy, but it would not be entirely wrong to talk anecdotally of this being a ‘shoebox’, would it?

3. I have four children, and we are looking after a dog. That counts as ‘so many children‘, I think. I do not really suffer from not knowing what to do though. I am perfectly busy buying stuff online, and screeching, and thinking about new babies. I sometimes bake, and read magazines. I totally know what to do.

4. The kids are not keen on broth, admittedly, or soup, mainly because the food bits are not separated out enough. I do give them pasta and pesto a lot though.

5. We run out of bread frequently, and I am often found trying to fob the boys off with rice cakes and other long-life carbohydrate-foodstuffs which have fallen into the back of the cupboard.

6. I do not ‘whip‘ the kids as a rule, but I do grip their wrists a little bit tightly when they do bad stuff in public. Sometimes I even run them over in the pushchair (see “Regrettable Things”) but I always stop short of actual whipping. Mark threatens to ‘whip’ them, but is yet to actually do it. They know this. It is fairly ineffective as a threat, it must be said.

7. We do send them to bed, and at the same time every night because I am  Gina Ford lover. And they are not allowed in our bed at night, because then no one sleeps. My favourite time of the day is when they are in bed and we get to drink sauvignon blanc and watch Battlestar Galactica without anybody squealing, kicking, moaning or whinging.

It is uncanny! My next task I have set myself involves finding My Story, rather than simply My Nursery Rhyme. There must be some classic epic novel which I can read as actually being about me. In the meantime, I shall go gaze at my new bag, which Mark has identified as ‘a new purse’. I said ‘yeah, it is’ in a shruggy and coy ‘what can you do? Me and new purses!’ kind of way. I have Gotten Away With It. Result.