Yesterday, while happily using my Yahoo email in the usual fashion, I went into the 'search mail' facility and the whole screen came up in Spanish.

Today I did exactly the same thing, and this is what I got:

WTF??????????????????????????????????????????????

As a PARENT OF A YOUNG BABY you can sometimes be forced to snatch bits of sleep whenever you can, and Friday night was no exception. So after a succession of feeds, nappy changes, baby rocking and general wailing it was so refreshing that you were able to text me at 5:13 am with your vital message:

network message please delete

Otherwise I might have overslept or something.

YOU BASTARDS!

"I liked the pregnant goats"

You're right, there is no context in which this would be an acceptable answer...

Parsley's taken the bairn out so's I can get some rehearsing done for me book launch tonight.

I've flouted my usual rehearsal technique and spouted poetry to meself in the bath instead.

I discovered that applauding was a bad idea (splashage).

I were bloody good though.

Just got back from Sunday lunch with the folks (at the very same pub me and Parsley once got thrown out of for doing kissing with tongues.)

My niece is cutting holes in her paper serviette (apparently if you're posh you call it a napkin) with her cutlery.

My mother, etiquette queen, intervenes.

"Becky," says Mummy Sixpence. "Why are you doing Oregano with your serviette?"

I love the way your brain tries to sort out your troubles for you while you sleep.

I dreamt I found the DVD remote control. (Seriously, though. Who's had it? Please bring it back.)

I dreamt I saw Kaya and we had a hug.

Kaya is the daughter of friends of Mr Expence. We used to socialise with them every Friday, so I saw the little girl virtually every week since she was born. She called me Mummy Number 3. Needless to say though, I haven't seen her since I left Mr Expence for ParsleySage last June, because none of them will speak to me now.

I kind of thought maybe some of them actually cared about me for who I was instead of just Mr Expence's wife and the person that cooked dinner for them a thousand fucking times.

(Or perhaps I should say "hosted dinner", since Mr Expence inevitably took the credit for all the cooking, although in actual fact I did my share.)

I mean, I marinated olives for these people, for chrissake!!!

I suppose it's on my mind because I sort of hoped that Kaya and her mum might come round when the baby was born, I sent them a card, I sent them a picture.

The dream was rubbish of course, Kaya would never give me a hug even if I saw her, firstly because she's not in the least a hugging kind of child, and secondly because since last June she's been indoctrinated to believe that I am Bad and Wrong.

She was 8 in September this year. I sent her a birthday present, again, but nobody replied.

I was watching LK Today this morning (I know, but your choice of activities whilst breastfeeding is really very limited) and Michael Ball was on (I know, I know) and he sang his new song which is called "You'll never get to heaven".

What was he thinking??!! I mean, was he never in the boy scouts???

These are the only two verses I can remember, so please feel free to remind me of the others.

Oh you'll never get to heaven
in a baked bean tin,
'cos a baked bean tin
has got baked beans in.

Oh you'll never get to heaven
in a playtex bra,
'cos a playtex bra
won't stretch that far...

And before you ask, I do have a perfectly legitimate explanation for my extensive knowledge of boy scout songs!!

A little aside first:

ParsleySage is lifting up the sofa in search of our DVD remote control, which has been lost for at least a week and a half. He enlists the help of The Artist Formerly Known As Littlun.

PS: [straining to lift sofa] Can you see anything TAFKAL?
TAFKAL: A rock!
PS: Is there a remote control?
TAFKAL: Rock!
PS: Anything apart from the rock?
TAFKAL: Rock!
PS: Ok, ok. Quick, get the rock.
[TAFKAL darts under sofa and back out again. PS eases sofa back to floor with a sigh of relief].
PS: Did you get the rock?
TAFKAL: No.

Anyway. Now that I am finally NOT on antibiotics for the first time since the birth of Baby Boco (and desperately ignoring the pain in my lower left jaw in case the dentist prescribes me another lot), I treated myself to a JD on the rocks (I see a rock theme to this post developing) at the Cow & Plough yesterday afternoon.

I enjoyed it so much that when we had to depart hastily to pick up TAFKAL from his mum's, I took the drink with me (glass and all) so that I could cradle it lovingly in the car and finish it off when I got home. (Apols to owners of Cow & Plough, etc.)

I've not had a drink for so long that it went right to my head and I found myself dancing around the room to Flake by Jack Johnson (I know he's gone all MOR bistro-chic now, but his first album, Brushfire Fairytales, is feckin amazing. This was his debut album before he got famous and dumbed down the music. Seriously, it's one of my top ten albums ever.)

So then the man comes for the rent and I dance down the stairs singing away, open the door laughing like a baboon (ok, so I've never heard one laugh but I'm guessing) and drop the mail and rent cheques all over the porch floor. The landlord has a thought bubble which says "oh my lord, she's fissed as a part" and he enquires anxiously after the baby.

"Fine, fine!" I sing. "He's gone out with ParsleySage!"

Shortly afterwards, PS returns with TAFKAL and Baby Boco and a bag of chips. Baby Boco is crying, so I try to feed him. But every time he starts suckling he screws his face up and howls!!!

Not a whisky drinker, then? What's wrong with the lad????!!!!

So PS has to give him a bottle instead, and then the baby crashes out for his longest sleep EVER, waking up at 4.45am this morning, by which time my addled boobs are exploding.

The moral of the story? Drinking whisky is bad.

But also very, very good.

ParsleySage: I'm a very bad man.
Six: Why so, my love?
ParsleySage: Because when you got up to change our son's nappy at 5 a.m., all I could think about was how good you looked in your knickers.

He's a very bad man.

My mother - master of the leading question.

Daddy Sixpence is watching TV. Mummy Sixpence sits down to join him.

Mummy Sixpence: Do you want this programme on - or do you want something decent?