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.