Back on track

Gosh, life in Dulwich can be exhausting. Let me talk you through my schedule and, by the time I'm finished you, too, will be yearning for a gin and tonic, a juicy re-run of ER and the love of a good man - and very good luck with that around these parts, my dears.

It all started, of course, with the usual harrassment from the Treasures. Promptly at 7.14 every morning, the little dears' carefully ironed uniforms either disappear or smear themselves in glue, so that when my darlings open their eyes, at 7.15, all their regulation gear is filthy/vanished and they are left with tights in tatters, PE kits missing vital gumshields or pullovers which have mysteriously grown elbow holes overnight. Sigh!

At least the mother I share the school runs with was taking the precious ones in today, as I accidentally guilted her into doing an extra turn this week, due to a long silence over the phone the other day which she took as evidence of my disgruntlement with the whole run arrangement. In fact, I had simply dropped the receiver and was scrabbling around on the floor for it - something I will be doing much more often, if it has this effect.

Then I was off to walk round the park with a lovely friend, followed by cups of tea. The real work of the day commenced with Pilates in the (rather dingy) sports club. For many months, I turned up and lay on the mat and let this wash over me, easy enough as it is early in the morning, the mats are reasonably comfortable compared to my bed of pain and guilt chez Divorce Towers, and the instructor plays deeply soporific whale music. Every now and then, Trudie, the instructrice, would exhort us to 'connect our core muscles' and I would blithely ignore her and float off again. Then, accidentally, my core muscles did one day connect exactly as they were told to and now, I'm afraid, it's all rather hard work. I do love it, though - particularly when she tells us to let our arms flop out onto the floor, palms up, and all over the hall you hear the distinctive thunk of diamond engagement and eternity rings hitting the floor. So very Dulwich!

Then on, in my ceaseless quest for self improvement (and some would say there's room enough) to my new still life drawing class, where today I wrestled for an entire hour with a banana, a piece of charcoal, and my conscience. Shouldn't I be working? Shouldn't I, at least, be cleaning something? Is it right that I should be devoting my life to the idle pursuit of pleasure when I've been such a bad girl and there's a credit crunch on? True Love is working very, very hard, even the Treasures are working (my eldest brought home simultaneous equations yesterday and, frankly, I'd rather have crabs). Still, I did manage a very creditable banana and the teacher is lovely.

That dilemma safely over, I popped home for a quick lunch before my next appointment, at the beauty parlour. I won't tell you what I went for. Suffice to say that I shall cut quite a dash on the beach this year, assuming I ever get to one, which is by no means certain. But I shan't worry my head over that now.

Back to the school for Child One, as Two was out to tea with a friend. Then briefly home, before taking Jumbo the rabbit to Child One's chum's house for 'rabbit therapy' (he has taken to pretending we are all carrots), picking up Two, then taking both chez their papa.

And now here I am alone, with you, and wondering quite how and why I got here. Still, as you can tell, life is really rather lovely and I do thank God (or someone) for my Treasures, TL, Mme Bovary and my gorgeous tracker mortgage.