MY HUSBAND was away (as usual) on a 10-day business trip to somewhere exotic, the baby (six months old at the time) and I were burning up with fever from some nasty virus he caught at the nursery, and my daughter (then two) had a tummy bug.
For what felt like 40 days and 40 nights I stumbled around the house in a feverish, tearful state, manically washing sheets, sterilising bottles, dishing out Calpol, overdosing on Paracetamol and Chardonnay, while trying to meet a deadline for a freelance story about some topic I had no clue about.
The only thing that kept me going through these agonising days and never-ending nights was the thought of my parents arriving shortly for a three-day visit from South Africa.
(They were not actually going to be staying with us, but in a B&B nearby, our house is too cramped for them).
In my delusional state I lived for the moment when my mother would walk through the front door, imagining the sheer horror and sympathy in her eyes as she took in the pitiful scene: all of us still in pyjamas at 5pm, dark circles under her long-suffering daughter's eyes, a wailing grandson, a hyperactive granddaughter, mountains of unwashed dishes and evidence of substance abuse everywhere.
I pictured her jumping into action, relieving me of the baby and ordering me to get some rest, calming down the manic toddler, washing the dishes before rustling up our first nutritious meal in a week, a mixture of Mary Poppins and Florence Nightingale. I was more poorly than I thought.
What actually happened was this: my mother swanned into the house, a vision of perfection, groomed to the roots, dressed to kill. She took one look at us, turned to my father and said, in disgust: "I told you we should not have come. They are not well."
I did eventually get to have a half-hour nap and they did order takeaway pizzas for all of us, but when they gratefully retired to their B&B that night, there w
"Maybe "Working Mum's Diary" should be change to "W..."