Today for the first time I have left our baby in the care of a childminder for a couple of hours (in preparation for when I do actually get some work). He will be going to her for 2 days a week starting next week.

I had to leave my baby! The most gorgeous baby ever to have been born in the world ever!

The house is eerily quiet and I keep thinking he is sleeping in the next room and expecting him to cry any minute.

Not sure if I have used my 'free' time particularly constructively:

1. Went to Sainsbury's, where for the first time in 6 months nobody went "Ooh" or "Aaaah" or "Ohh, look" as I walked past with my trolley. Strange, considering I look just as hot as usual

2. Came home, unpacked shopping.

3. Took frozen stuff out to garage, put tumble drying on.

4. Made lunch.

5. Ate lunch.

6. Blogged.

That's pretty much it, and it'll be time to go and get him again in 15 mins.

Hooray!!!

My maternity pay ends in 1 week's time.

I am self-employed, and I currently have no work.

This means I will be on zero income.

This means I am basically fucked.

Have had 2 interviews for contracts so far, but didn't get either. That's because I'm crap at interviews.

Got a third interview next week and not feeling terribly optimistic about that either. I can do the job but it's not a freelance job and I have now been out of the freelance loop for so long (due to doing the Market Randomtown job and then going on maternity leave) that if I did get it, I might as well wind up my business so I don't have to keep paying 3 different types of NI contributions all the frickin time. And anyway, I probably won't get it because I'm shite at interviews.

I know ParsleySage is worried about money (he's supporting 4 kids for chrissake, paying the mortgage on the property his ex lives in and the rent and bills here) and I feel a bit of a useless flake for not bringing any money in and not having a proper job like a normal person.

My business was working really well at one point, I was turning stuff down. I don't know how to make it work again. I guess I just got lucky and I was in the loop back then so stuff just came my way, I didn't have to go for any cacky interviews, people just phoned up and invited me to do work for them.

If I'm honest, I would much rather be freelance than do the job for Lobster City Council that I'm being interviewed for next week, because I am not a very good employee. Five minutes in a job and I'm boarding the good ship anarchy, getting all shifty whenever anyone tells me what to do, not doffing my cap to those in positions of authority and refusing to fill in my timesheets.

But in reality I have to accept whatever work I can get.

And in reality I won't get the job anyway, because I'm feckin shite at interviews.

Had Parsley's sister staying for a few days. Last night Taf came over, so I spent ages cooking a nice family meal we could all enjoy together.

Imagine tender pasta, soft warm flakes of tuna, juicy sweetcorn bursting with the flavour of spring, and a creamy white sauce with a hint of Cheshire cheese, all baked in a massive casserole dish.

I cooked tuna pasta bake 'cos I know Taf (who is as fussy about his food as any other 3 year old) likes it, and I cooked broccoli to go with it 'cos I know he likes that too.

So, after an hour and a half's slog in the kitchen, I deliver my steaming dishes to the table and summon the assembled.

Taf approaches the table and eyes up my offerings.

"Why is there only pasta and broccoli?" he says.

Fortunately we had a dining table between us, otherwise my next question might have been "Why are you wearing it?"

She's gone on hols again.

What a fookin slattern.

Molty says: a. list seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself

(I can't do b & c. I'm too tired.)

1. I am at least 15 minutes late everywhere. Sometimes as much as an hour and a half. I'm not proud of it.

2. The things in my wardrobe are arranged both by type of garment (tops/skirts/trousers) and by colour (white & cream, pink/purple/red, green & blue, grey & black). This probably isn't normal behaviour but I've never really looked in anyone else's wardrobe.

3. I operate a 'three strikes and you're out' Christmas card system.

4. When I was little I was scared of men with beards. Then I married a man with a beard. You should always listen to your inner child. My mum booked a portrait photographer to come to the house when I was four. I looked out of the window and saw a bloke with a full on ZZ-top walking up the drive. It took them an hour to coax me out from under the chest of drawers on the landing.

5. I own over 120 pairs of knickers. I like buying knickers. They're not like collectors' items or anything. I do actually wear them. Not all at once.

6. I have a phobia of vomiting. I haven't been sick since I was 12 (24 years ago).

7. I have never ironed bedlinen, because life is too short. I have never been to the gym. I have never eaten black pudding. I probably never will do any of those things. I don't think my life is any the poorer because of it.

I don't think these 7 things make me sound a very appealing person but they're all true. And it's 10 to 11 on a Saturday evening, so nobody's going to read them anyway D So now I'll just sit tight and wait for Parsley to tell me how my life won't be complete until I've eaten some black pudding

I'm a cow, come play with me
Learning colours and shapes, yippee!
ABC and 123
We'll have so much fun, you'll see.

I'm sooooooooooo glad my auntie bought baby Smudge the V-Tech 'Moosical Beads' for Christmas.

The cow's opening theme is to the tune of 'Lou, Lou, Skip to my Lou' and once you've heard it you sing it like a moron all day long.

The cow also has appalling grammar. For example, when you touch the picture of the sun she pronounces "In the day the sun shines bright". I am forced to shout "-LY" every single time, as it makes me so uncomfortable.

Stupid Cow.

*Hums... I'm a cow,come play with me... oh shut UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

Taf is playing with his engines. He holds up a truck conspicuously labelled "TAR".

Taf: This isn't a coal truck.
Six: No, it's a tar truck.
Taf: Do you mean like a jam tart?
Six: [giggling] No... when they are building roads, tar is what they spread on the roads.
Taf: Like a traffic jam?

He's much too quick for me.

My mother is a big fan of sugared almonds - so much so that when I refused to have them at my wedding (sugared almonds being the traditional 'ladies' favours' given to wedding guests), she had a strop and said she wouldn't come to the wedding unless I had them. (I didn't. She did.)

I didn't want them at my wedding because lets face it, nobody (apart from my mother) actually likes them.

However, when we were kids, Mummy Sixpence convinced herself that my brother C was a fan. She is a bit soft where my brother C is concerned. He is the only one of her children who resembles her side of the family, so even though he's distinctly lacking on the filial duties front, there is a definite soft spot. Middle child syndrome - whatever!

(Last Summer.... Mummy Sixpence: C has always been such an individual. 6p: We're all individuals, mum. Mummy Sixpence: Oh well C is just a bit more of an individual.)

Anyway, for years and years and years, she would buy C a massive tub of sugared almonds every Christmas.

This was quite traumatic for him until we discovered that our cat, Sixpence (yes that was the cat's name as opposed to mine) went mad for them!

From then on, C was forever leaving the top of his tub of sugared almonds off "by accident" and Sixpence would come along and obligingly lick all the sugar off, leaving a pile of soggy, chewed almond bits.

But one year, C could take it no more.

He opened his tub of sugared almonds that Christmas morning and looked at me with such abject despair that I took pity upon him. Not least because the cat was now dead.

"Mum," I ventured. "C hates sugared almonds!"

"No he doesn't," she said in her 'don't be ridiculous' primary school teacher's voice. "He loves them!"

It took about 30 minutes and a seance with the dead cat to convince her.

It's been there since Sunday.

*in a series of 600,000

When I was younger I had this fantasy that I was going to start writing a novel while I was on maternity leave with my first child.

My maternity leave ends in 3 weeks.

And so how has my novel progressed during the last 8 months?

I have never written less in my entire life.

Someone made contact recently who I hadn't heard from in a long time. No nostalgia, honest (believe me the nostalgia on that particular score has been done to the death and probably a little bit further) so it was just an honest to goodness nice surprise.

Inevitably though it did bring back various memories including one of the funniest things anyone's ever said to me.

Some of you may have gathered that I have a degree in that most useful and academic of subjects also known as 'Performing Arts'.

I actually specialised in Arts Management, but there were students specialising in other disciplines within the department i.e. Dance, Drama and Music.

On the way to a student party with this chappie one night I warned him that some of the Drama students were a bit 'out there'.

(Aside: I was in fact madly in love with one of the drama students, a teeny tiny lithe chap called Alastair. He knew I loved him but one night, when he thought I was drunk enough, he told me I "wore too much black" and "had too many men". How many is too many, one wonders? I'm wearing a purple stripey jumper, btw, Al.)

Anyway. Me and my boyfriend of the time are sitting at this student party when in flounces a fellow student wearing a yellow polka-dot ruffled flamenco shirt and red crushed velvet hotpants.

Me feller looks, frankly, stricken, so I lean over and whisper in his ear, by way of explanation, "Drama".

"That ain't a drama," says my bloke. "That's a fucking crisis."

Don't get me wrong - I love my car (a 2003 aqua green honda civic) and I was quite relieved when Mr Expence let me keep it in the carve up (seeing as he paid for half of it).

It has a number of charming stains on the back seat that bring back very fond memories from when Parsley and I were courting.

But it has a particular feature that is driving me bananas!

If you unlock the central locking and then don't open any doors, it locks itself again after a short interval as it assumes you were having a laff.

Every single day, there is me trying to lug a stone of baby boy in ridiculously heavy car seat/carrycot thing to the car, which takes both hands. So I stick my key fob out of the front door and press the button to unlock the car before I start... and you can GUARANTEE that just as I reach the door of the car to put him in, the darn thing locks itself again.

I'm sure the neighbours are getting fed up of me standing in the driveway shouting "effing pissing bolloxing stupid car" with my hands full of car seat.

I'm sure there must be a better way. Thoughts?