I lost my temper.

It’s fair to say that I am normally a placid sort of person. But I have been under great stress recently: I am living on a building site with an eight month-old baby and no proper facilities for watching television.

I gazed at the bricks. They were clearly the wrong bricks. I am not a bricklayer or other brick expert, but I know the difference between pink bricks and red bricks, and these are pink bricks and the rest of the wall is red bricks, and not only will they not match but I refuse to allow any wall on my property to be finished with effeminate materials.

At which point I rang the Methodical Builder and lost my temper. I screamed and shouted and used the objectionable f-word, then I used the objectionable f-word some more times, then called him a cunt before putting the phone down on him. Then I realised that I didn’t feel that much better than before, so I called him again and used the objectional f-word several more times.

The Health Visitor appeared. It was the day of Baby Servalan’s periodic checkup, where they establish whether she is living in a good home environment with stable parents. I used some more objectionable f-words and put the phone down again.

We walked through the kitchen past the official HM Gas Inspector, who was using words like ‘unbelievable’ and ‘disgraceful’ and taking photographs of the work done so far in order to send a report to the authorities. Short of three roadies for the Stereophonics appearing and starting to set up equipment in my back garden, it’s safe to say that the day had reached a nadir.

We passed the baby inspection with flying colours. You clearly have to be living in a wet cardboard box next to a nuclear power plant with three drug dealers and Maxine Carr in order to get a negative report from these people. It is worrying. Had it been my decision I would have had her taken immediately into care.

“Weaaarrghhhhh!!!” concludes the Baby.

“She has been like this for days,” I explain to the LTLP. “Crying a lot and impossible to deal with. I think,” I reflect, drawing on all my medical knowledge, “that she might be teething.”

“Are you sure she’s not hungry?”

“Definitely not. She had a milk only earlier.”

The LTLP gives the Baby a milk. The Baby quietens and looks content. I am crestfallen. I have been in charge for only one week and I have almost killed her through malnutrition.

“We went to the Village Pub yesterday,” I offer, in my defence. “She had some of my chips.”

The conversation sort of peters out for a bit.

“Did you miss me, at all?” she asks finally.

“Of course I did!” I reply, stung by the question. “Did you bring me a present?”

Lunchtime at the Village Pub.

I am in a particularly good mood, because a) it is lunchtime and b) I am in the Village Pub. For a moment I cast aside the raven-black shadow of my abandonment.

The Chipper Barman pours me a pint of Wherry, my usual beer of choice.

“Wherry!!!” I sing delightedly, in the manner of US pop star Ray Lamontagne. “Wherry wherry wherry wherry wherry.”

There is stunned silence at my little joke – many people in the Village Pub are unaware that I am able to sing.

“I’ve been… serrrrrrrvved by a wooomannn,” I continue. The Chipper Barman looks a bit pissed off at this, and slopes off to deal with another customer.

“Stop singing please,” instructs Short Tony in a sharper tone than I would have thought necessary. He then starts recounting some minor anecdote of the ‘you really had to be there’ variety. These are never very satisfactory, so I turn to the newspaper instead.

I become a single parent.

In many ways is a shame that society has such double standards. It looks upon fathers who bring up their children alone as sort of loveable floppy-haired Hugh-Grant type chaps, making time in their busy schedule for outings to the cinema, football etc., whilst being endearingly shambolic at changing nappies, shopping for baby clothes and forgetting important school events (but turning up in the nick of time, just when the kid is starting to cry with disappointment).

Whereas single mothers are seen as little more than feckless public sector funded common prostitutes, wheeling their prams around council estates in between getting ASBOs and watching the Jeremy Kyle show.

I do not necessarily endorse this view. It is just the way it is. Some things will never change.

What is important is that people avoid saying things that might reinforce negative stereotypes.

Anyway, so the LTLP has decided to work abroad for a bit.

She claims that she will be back on Wednesday morning, but then she said she’d take up my cricket trousers and that was two years ago, so I see no reason why she should be trusted this time. Even as I write this she is probably waltzing into a new life like selfish feminist icon Shirley Valentine with some foreign man who does not wash enough. It is a tragedy, as there is a baby involved, but I have moved the kettle to where I originally wanted it and bought some things in Tesco that I am Not Normally Allowed, so perhaps it is for the best after all. I wish her well for the future.

Mrs Short Tony has been cooking me my tea; it is reassuring to know that there are still women in the world with a sense of responsibility.

I will attempt to keep my private secret diary updated as I settle in to my new routine. It will be difficult, as I am extremely busy with my responsibilities, but I see no reason why the LTLP should spoil your enjoyment of the internet, as well as my entire life and that of an innocent babe.

The baby lolls in her chair, a dummy in her mouth. I settle down to watch the Brazil/Argentina match.