I drive to my cricket net.

It is a beautiful day, and, knowing nothing about their impending flu horror, the birds cheep cheepity-cheep cheerily on the branches. I turn onto the main road, put my foot down, and bask in the luxury of being able to think.

I usually write my Private Secret Diary in one of two ways. The first is when something interesting happens to me and I think ‘aha!!! I will write that in my Private Secret Diary!!!’ and spend the rest of the day toying with it in my mind and laughing out loud at my own sophisticated jokes on the subject. This annoys the LTLP immensely. The second way involves me sitting in front of the PC with a piece of toast and alternately gazing at the screen and the rabbits in the garden, wondering what to say and waiting for Something to Happen.

(NB the toast is not important to the creative process; it was mentioned there as a writerly way of telling people that I do this first thing in the morning, when people eat toast. I am subtle.)

I cross the mini roundabout, taking advantage of the fact that nobody really knows how to drive round mini roundabouts.

I had no idea that babies took up this much time. I frown at the thought. She will be leaving home in about seventeen and a half years, and that does seem a bit long to get a guest blogger in for, unless it’s J.D. Salinger or that French bloke who got paralysed and dictated his first novel by winking his eyelid in code for each letter. Even then it might drag a bit, as he would probably get caught up in replying to comments, checking stats etc.

So not having toying-with-it time or rabbit time, this has been a bit more domestic lately. My favourite ‘funny domestic’ blog is Greavsie* – I will try not to tread on his toes. I negotiate the 20 MPH zone without stalling.

The sun beats down as I carry my bag into the sports centre. There are three people using the indoor walking machines.

(*Other funny domestic blogs are available)

“So you’re a musician then?” asks Jim the Carpenter, as we examine the state of my bedroom ceiling.

I step over the boxes, rolled up carpet and a guitar case, and wonder how he knows about this. He has probably heard about my time supporting chart band ‘The Sultans of Ping FC’, despite the fact that I am careful never to boast. I nod modestly, not wanting to make too much of things.

“Cos I’m a DJ, like,” he continues. I am a bit annoyed by this, as we were just about to talk about my own success.

“Yeah, I do quite a few big clubs and stuff and – you know – raves.”

He taps the side of his nose with his finger, presumably having got some sawdust up it. “Outdoors and stuff,” he continues.

“Ah… outdoors,” I repeat, conspiratorially, working out what he means.

Something twigs in the back of my mind. There is an odd flattened bit in my back garden, on pretty well the only bit of grass that hasn’t been dug up. He is trying to tell me something.

Jim the Carpenter has clearly held an illegal rave in my back garden.

Short Tony has not mentioned anything, but then he has been on holiday so might not have been aware. My other next-door neighbour, about whom (grammar) I do not write, is slightly hard of hearing, so might not have heard the disco music. Big A lives a little further away and could have heard it, but he sleeps fairly soundly and anyway would probably not have told me but just gone over there to sell bottled water. Narcoleptic Dave would not have heard it.

I will probably get a letter from the Parish Council for this.

I will check my electricity bill carefully. I know roughly how much power a cement mixer uses, so it will show up if he has been plugging in record ‘decks’ and lasers etc etc. We chat about the music scene for a few minutes before I leave him to his carpentry, determined to keep an eye on him.

The Chipper Barman raises his eyebrow.

“What’re you having?” asks Short Tony.

I gaze forlornly across the bar. “Pint of Wherry,” I conclude, passing over the stronger beers. “That’s the most Atkins-friendly, isn’t it?” I add anxiously.

I have been on the Atkins diet all day, and although I am tiring of its culinary tyranny, I am determined to stick to it. I sip my lesser-bodied beer, miserably.

For the grillionth time I wonder how I got myself into this situation. Against other males, my age, height and weight do place me comfortably into the norm group; unfortunately it is apparently the ‘Norm from Cheers’ group, and it would be better for me to do something about it.

However the main reason is that the LTLP said that it would be much easier for her to keep to the diet if I did it as well. She used a special sort of Voice to say this. So here I am.

Any messages of support would be welcome.

“How about this one?” I offer.

The baby eyes me with enthusiasm disguised as suspicion.

“You’re just too good to be trooooo… can’t take my eyes offfa yoooo… you’d be like heaven to tuchhhh… I wanna hold yooo so muchhh…”

Even as soon as half way through the first verse, the baby is looking increasingly alarmed. I hold the guitar where she can see it so she can witness me playing the complicated chords that she has been so slow to learn on her Fisher-Price Peek-A-Boo piano.

“This is the good bit!!!” I cry, as a stream of sick slides down her chin and on to her t-shirt.

“Daaa naa daaa naa daaa da na da na daaa naa daaa naa daaa da na da na…”

The baby goes very red, scrunches up her face and then smiles delightedly. The smell of fresh shit drifts up from her chair.

“Aaah lurve yoooo bay-bee and if it’s quideall-rite I need yoo bay-be towarm thelone leee nights o priddybay-beeeee…”

“Stoppit!!! Stoppit!!!”

“Watch this,” I say, picking up my guitar. “She loves it.”

“Aaaahh stepped innnn, tooo an avvva-lannch,” I croon. “It cuvvverrd up maaah soul.”

Grandfather and baby looked on highly impressed.

“Youuu whoo wishhh – to Con-quer Painn, youuu must learn…”

The LTLP rushes in, a look of appalled concern across her face.

“Stoppit!!! Stoppit!!!”

“What?!?”

“Do NOT sing my baby Leonard Cohen songs. It’ll make her…” she tails off, unable to decide what it will make her.

I break off my song in a huff. I do not understand why one has to sing only juvenile songs to babies. Cohen’s work deals with love and death and sex and loss and immense longing, all subjects that are bound to come up in the National Curriculum. Plus the chords are quite easy.

“Dooo nott dressss in those RAGS for mee; I knoww youuu…”

“Stoppit!!! Stoppit!!!

It is sometimes difficult being the artistic one in a relationship. I accept the status of the LTLP as a world-renowned scientist, but I would not dream of giving her advice as to what to do with her beakers or whatever it is she does. I see no reason why she should interfere with my area of expertise in life (as evidenced by this very bit of writing) i.e. the pursuit of beauty and truth.

The baby seems unconcerned by all this. One day she will appreciate the trouble I have taken to educate her in the face of aggressive philistinism.

I have some Easter visitors!!!

“We won’t get in your way,” announces my mother. “We’re going to go for a long walk today, aren’t we?”

My father nods, to cover an expression that is just the forlorn side of miserable. “Mmm,” he enthuses, like a man who has not only lost a shilling but found sixpence, but who has just been beaten with sticks and poked in the eyes by the man whose sixpence it was. He goes to fetch his coat, arthritically.

“Your father gets so tired these days,” she sighs, as she traces the route on the map. It is across about 27 folds. My offer to drive them to one end is accepted.

“I haven’t been in an open-topped car for years,” shouts my father, his enthusiasm levels suddenly boosted as the wind howls around our heads. “Probably since we were married.” A shadow momentarily darkens his face. I point out interesting sights as we speed through the Norfolk countryside.

” !” shouts my mother from the back seat.

“What???”

” !”

I look at her in the rear-view mirror. She has her coat pulled right round her and is huddling low, clutching her bag and hat. I’m sure there have been colder pensioners, but only as subjects of local TV news items that feature a neighbour explaining: “I went round there two years ago, but there was no answer so I assume she’d moved.” I decide that we had better get there as soon as possible, and put my foot down accordingly.

We arrive at our destination, one of the fashionabler coastal villages. Being Easter Monday, it is full of the okay yah contingent. I cruise through town with my shades on and deposit my pensioner cargo at the beach.

I go to ASDA.

Not entirely sure how I got tricked into this, I sulk, wheeling Baby Servalan round in a trolley that should sport a Police-Aware sticker. The LTLP engages with the groceries, enthusiastically.

I queue at the checkout whilst she zips off to fetch This Week’s Thing That We Should Have Remembered Before We Got To The Checkout. In front of me is an elderly man. He catches my eye and seems to study me. Then he looks at Baby Servalan. Then he looks at me again.

“Well she’s better looking than you,” he remarks in a matter-of-fact way, before turning back to his shopping.

There is a significant pause before I respond by deciding that I can’t quite think of a response, and so I won’t dignify things by responding. We queue together in silence.

It is frustrating when you can’t think of anything to say in a situation. As a witty and urbane writer (’superb’ – Web Active Magazine (now defunct due to no sales)) I am used to being able to articulate my point in a polished and flowing fashion, but I find things less easy in verbal intercourse. I briefly consider asking him to submit his point to me in writing, but decide against it. The rude cunt who will die shortly.

The most stupid thing is that of course he is completely wrong. As most readers will be aware, I am very good looking, whereas Baby Servalan just looks like a baby. So he has made himself look an idiot without me having to even try.

I resolve not to shop in ASDA again. I do not get this sort of confrontation in the Village Shop; we enjoy a better class of customer in there.