Every time I go. Ducks. Real ones, with proper bills and everything.

They lurk in the car park. Always in the same place – a small hashed out area in the car park, directly opposite the trolleys. They never move from this spot.

The Trolley Man eyes them suspiciously as he goes about his work. I suspect that he does not approve of them being there as they a) must get in the way of his trolley-pushing occasionally, and b) shit everywhere (but only within the small hashed out area).

The Toddler is delighted and surprised to see them, as she is each time we visit the shop. I buy her off for a bit by walking her over to say ‘hello’ to them. I am hoping that if I show her lovely things like ducks and clouds and sky ect ect then she will not turn into Amy Winehouse.

An old lady approaches from within the supermarket. She is carrying a sliced loaf which, she explains, she has purchased for the ducks as ‘nobody is feeding them’. She offers some of the bread to the Toddler, who flings whole slices at them accordingly. The Trolley Man looks on, appalled.

“That was kind of you,” I murmur, waiting to be shouted at.

We wave goodbye to the ducks – all eight of them, gorging through a mountain of bread. The old lady disappears in the other direction, no doubt to claim her cold weather payment from my taxes and to go on and on in letters to local newspapers about how poor she is. But it is a nice little moment

It is uncomfortable, but not life-threatening. I am going into town tomorrow, for the market, so I will be able to pop into the chemist to ask for something for ‘Athlete’s Foot’, which is more dignified than telling them that I want something that I can put round my knackers.

I have no wish to discuss an infection around my knackers in a public place. Although I am grown-up about these matters, it is the sort of thing that you keep to yourself.

I think my new pants are to blame. They are tight, red and trendy; the sort of pants in which you would like to be run over. There might not be enough air circulation in them. I did not keep the instructions.

The LTLP has left me for the evening. Every now and again one of the ladies in the Village holds some form of party. All the women go, and only they are invited. I suspect they might be a front for something.

Tonight it is an ‘Aromatherapy Products’ party, at the disused Fish Shop. She returns later on in the evening, bearing a satisfied expression.

“I’ve ordered you something,” she slurs. “For your knackers.”

I look at her, appalled.

“You did what?”

“Well all the others were ordering oils for relaxation, muscle ache and all that. But the lady said that this one would be really good for fungal infections.”

“Oh.”

[ad#Google Adsense banner]

“Here you are,” she offers. “There are some instructions on here, as well.”

I take the squirrel somewhat dubiously. We drive home – me, the Toddler, and a squirrel.

“I’m Sammy the Squirrel!” reads the instruction sheet. “It is all dark and lonely at nursery at the weekends. Please take me home and look after me!”

I glare at the squirrel. It looks back at me with beady buttony eyes. The Toddler strokes its label, absent-mindedly.

“Please will you write in my special book about what I’ve done with your family, drawing pictures or adding photos,” the sheet continues.

I look at the squirrel. I look at the Toddler. She is two years old now, and still very backward in her essay constructions. In fact all she can really do is draw butterflies – odd GM-mutated ones that just look like zig zag lines. I doubt that she will be able to write a ‘what we did on our holidays – me and squirrel’ piece.

I have not been given homework for coming up for twenty years now, and to be honest I had hoped to have left all that stuff behind me. Now I have to write the bloody ‘Diary of a Nobody’ in vermin form. It sits on the table, clearly looking forward to a few days of adventure and excitement – unfortunately I then completely forget about it and resort to taking a couple of snatched photos of it in the pub.

This does not happen to Martin Amis.

“Girl’s phone! It’s a girl’s phone! Hahahaha!”

I am getting a bit tired of this ridicule. It is not as if I am particularly affected by it. It is just boring and predictable. If people want to spend hundreds of pounds on the latest ‘fashionable’ gadget when there is one in perfect working order that they can get for free then they are the idiots, not I.

John returns from the toilet.

“Mppphhhhhffrggghahahahaha!” he laughs. He is bloody immature. Short Tony and Big A join in. So are they. Even Mrs Short Tony, who you think would have some sort of gender solidarity.

“You are wasting your breath,” I inform them. “Water off a duck’s back.”

“A duckie’s back,” interjects Eddie, a quite inappropriate gayist remark.

Honestly, they are all living in the dinosaur ages. It is the 21st century now, and if I want to carry round a pink phone then I am perfectly at liberty to do so. The world has moved on, and I am proud to say that I have moved with it.

He repeats his news.

I am stunned by the announcement. To say that the news hits me like a football-sized chunk of uranium contained in a safe that has then been placed in an iron-framed grand piano and sent plummeting from the fifteenth floor window of the Institute of High Gravity Studies with a member of sixties hippie combo ‘The Mamas and the Papas’ tied to each leg (John Phillips having a large quantity of loose change in his pocket) followed by an antelope, a large bag of ball bearings and a parcel marked ‘DANGER OF INJURY! Do Not Attempt to Lift This’ would be an understatement.

“Weightwatchers?!?” I gape, looking round the kitchen.

The news is confirmed.

“I wouldn’t mind going as well,” somebody else says.

There is madness in the air. We are meant to be a proper snooker club, albeit the worst snooker club in England. Now there is a breakaway delegation thinking of attending Weightwatchers on our nights off.

“It’s a complete rip-off,” I explain. “All they do is tell you to lose weight and then when you turn up the next week, ask you if you’ve done so.”

“Well that’s a motivational thing, isn’t it?” says Eddie.

“Look,” I counter desperately, in my official Club Secretary capacity. “I’ll do a table in Excel and stick it up on the noticeboard. We can each aim to get our weight in stones below our highest breaks.”

My idea is dismissed as unrealistic. We now not only have the worst snooker club in England, but we have the worst snooker club in England (on diets).

“You’ve no dignity. None of you,” I mutter sadly.

“Show us yer phone,” somebody retorts.

There is no real reason why I need a cell phone these days. I do not have important people to call any more, and I have no friends to text. Apparently however I need to be contactable by the nursery in an Emergency, or they ring Social Services instead.

The LTLP has now got a Blackberry, which means that half my emails are things like ‘get the dinner on’. So I have taken her old phone, which is a Motorola and bright lurid pink.

One of the advantages of living in a small village is that nobody is particularly bothered about fashion or stuff, so it is not as if people will laugh at me for having a bright lurid pink phone. Unfortunately the first time I have to use it is in the middle of the shopping centre in King’s Lynn in the school holidays. I huddle up with my body pressed against a wall, trying to take the call with my head tucked underneath my anorak. I do not want to find myself the subject of the weekly “POLICE HUNT ‘MINDLESS’ ATTACKERS” headline in the local newspaper.

I am relieved when the call ends and I am able to escape to the security of home. It is actually quite a snazzy phone, with features such as a camera and the ability to play a tune when a call arrives rather than just a ringing noise. I have to say that I am quite proud of it.

I go to the Village Pub.

Everybody points and laughs at me.