Remi has become frightened of the toilet. He says that while he was at nursery, someone flushed the toilet that was filled with way too much toilet paper (every parent of a small child recognises this scenario) and the water began to rise. He now will only do a wee outside or if you come into the toilet with him. He won’t flush the loo unless you are in there with him, and he asks you to watch the water while he turns his back and washes his hands. He’s like, KEEP WATCHING. Don’t look at me. Watch the water!

Obviously this is not a sustainable situation. It makes me wonder if he has seen more overflowing toilets than I actually realise. There’s that incredible act two in the Triangle of Sadness where everyone in the superyacht gets vomity and the toilets overflow with the most revolting and slippery wastewater, and there’s an overflowing toilet in Rose Byrne’s bathroom in Platonic. How much does this kid see? I used to have a good handle on these kinds of things but the whole cadence and tone of this family has shifted now that the teenagers have gained in power and number. They watch things and listen to things and say things that I cannot do much about, and the culture and morals of the family have shifted in response. Mostly I accept this. We are, in any case, overrun. There is usually a teenager somewhere in my eyeline. They tend to lie down quite a lot. Ned constructs Esher-like cushion-to-couch stairways and other soft furnishing platforms to splay his newly-hairy body over, along, and in, while the others are often plugged into a device and just sit for hours. They come and go, to school, out with friends, babysitting, walking the dog. I never quite know who will be home for dinner. Dinner might be for four, and might easily swell to 12. No one bothers much to articulate any of this in advance, and as such, my powers in the kitchen are simply unparalleled. I whip up meals like magic and always manage to pad the table out regardless of the unexpected extras. I keep telling the children that one day they will marvel at my skills, but right now they think everyone gets served three Ottolenghi salads plus a traybaked chicken and warmed sourdough of an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday evening. One day they will understand.

What do those kids do when they are not littering the couch with akimbo limbs? Last night one kid was at a party, another had one babysitting job which segued into another babysitting job as a neighbour went into labour and off to the hospital, another kid was at a WWF wrestling match with friends somewhere, another was babysitting another lot of neighbours kids. Two kids were with us, one asleep, one trying on my high summer heels. It’s like The Babysitters Club series here right now, but in real life and with absolutely no girls. The Square in which we live is awash with neighbours needing ad hoc and regular babysitting, and what better people to know than the family with lots of kids who have been looking after each other for years? They’ve nearly all had experience looking after kids from all ages, from tiny babies onwards…and there’s usually one kid here who hasn’t gone out to a party/isn’t in the middle of GCSEs or A levels/unwilling to each a tidy £10 per house for sitting down at someone else’s place for a few hours. It’s a goldmine, I tell ya.

Clothes update

The Tax Situation has curbed many, many old spending habits, and forced new ways of meeting my new dress needs. Two weeks ago I got all het up and panicky and sold a Chanel jacket which felt very much like ripping a baby from my arms. It wasn’t a jacket I had ever really worn, so not really like a baby at all, but it felt like I was making one of those rash decisions you rue, for years later. Like I do the Alexander McQueen jacket with the 40’s shoulders and slimmest of lines that I let go on a whim one day stupidly, rashly, mindlessly. Anyway, the Chanel jacket sold for £510, along with some Charlotte Olympia heels (£71) and two Roksanda blouses at £60 each. The money was quickly deposited into my account where it burned and ached and screamed at me…SPEND ME BEFORE I GET USED UP ON HAIRCUTS AND PE SHOES AND HYDROCORTISONE CREAM AND MOBILE PHONE BILLS! And so I spent a good week obsessing about finding a new Chanel jacket to ‘reinvest’ into. The only good one was on a US site but there are horribly expensive customs and duty taxes these days. So I came up with a plan to get the jacket via a complex system of friends and friends of friends and other people’s sisters and new accounts and shipping addresses and various countries and I may well have lost a week of my life and tried many good people’s patience. And it probably won’t fit because of the upper arms situation which shows no signs of resolving.

I also went to an Erdem sample sale after work this week and found dresses reduced from £1500 to £150 and so now I have more dresses to sell to ensure I adhere to the ‘one on, one out’ policy. Which I have to do three times. I also think I have a bit of upper-arm-induced body dysmorphia because one dress I bought is a size 16 and another is a size 18. I was like ‘ohhhh I shall belt it in and look all swishy and a bit like Audrey Hepburn in ‘Roman Holiday’ with all this fabric’ but Mark said WHY IS THAT DRESS SO BIG AT THE BACK? IT LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE STORING A TAIL.

On Mark

He has been struck by a mysterious swollen set of feet/lower legs. They have been hurting him so much that he can’t walk without crutches and he has to put them up on cushions and moan a lot. I was my usual brittle self about it because I kept telling him that if he didn’t do something about his generous tum then his sciatica would get worse and he would turn…immobile. Which he has been, all week. I said I will not prematurely become your carer. It’s all a bit tense. So he has had xrays and blood tests and emergency visits to the blood test clinic to check for clots and it turns out his current cocktail of (not fun) drugs may have exacerbated latent gout.

Talk about sexy times in Cleveland Square.

He also had a wonderful birthday party before the gout attack where everyone told him he was a most excellent and loved man, and they gifted him pottery lessons which he shall get to once he can walk again unaided. (Roll my eyes).

Anyway. here we are at the party:

Here’s his cake which the dog got to first:

And Barnaby, Ava and I at his Year 13 Leaver’s service in a chapel in Westminster Abbey. Oh yes, that’s how we roll here in Londontown:

And more party photos from last weekend on a penthouse apartment balcony with lovely, lovely friends. Mark had to go lie down with his legs up in the air in the living room so missed out on *quite* a bit:

Lastly, the baby, Barnaby, Otis, and Mark: