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the recruitment company I had signed up for. I almost deleted the recruitment company’s email, as despite carefully filling in the forms telling them my qualifications, my interests, the fields I wished to work in and the salary I was looking for, so far they had sent a steady stream of jobs that were nothing to do with my expertise, were located five hundred miles away and paid approximately a third of what I previously earned. However, mainly so I could look like I was doing something important – and thus avoid catching the eye of any of the other parents and having to engage in conversation – I opened it, and lo and behold, IT WAS ONLY MY DREAM FUCKING JOB!

      It was perfect. I’d be working for one of the hottest new tech start-up companies of the last five years, who occupied a sexy, shiny, modern, glass office block, instead of a grey building on a grey industrial estate, yet was only about twenty minutes’ drive from my house.

      I have often passed the office building and metaphorically pressed my nose against the glossy mirrored-glass windows. Apparently, it’s just as cool inside (yes, I might have googled it. Repeatedly), with light and space and acres of white desks and Beautiful People. OK, maybe I am imagining the Beautiful People, but I am pretty sure everyone who works there is super-cool and trendy and probably wears hipster glasses and ethical pants. They probably have Whatsapp groups to discuss things instead of insisting on pointless two-hour meetings to resolve something that could have been sorted with one email, and if they do have meetings they sit on … oooh … I dunno, beanbags or something. Actually, do I want to work somewhere with beanbags? I’m almost forty-two. Could I manage to get up off a beanbag with dignity? They probably don’t have beanbags, it’ll be fine.

      And I’d actually be doing something quite stimulating and challenging and interesting, unlike the old job where the best thing I got to do was tell Dodgy Ed in Accounts that actually, no, it wasn’t possible to eradicate all traces of the hardcore porn that he had ‘accidentally downloaded’ from his laptop (in a fit of malice I also claimed that, in fact, the internet tracks everything you do and so even if he bought a new laptop and threw that one in a river, the internet would know about the porn and so his wife would still be able to see what he had been watching).

      The pay is really good, too. Which would be awfully nice, as the layoff money has almost run out, and I hate the idea of not having my own money. I know it all goes into the joint account anyway, but I’ve always contributed to that, and the idea of being ‘dependent’ on Simon sticks somewhat in my throat. The only downside is that it would be a full-time position.

      I suppose I should really have discussed the whole full-time thing with Simon first, but I was so excited about my perfect job coming up pretty much right on my doorstep (and mentally I had also spent most of my lovely new salary already) that I just went ahead and told the agency to put me forward for it. Oh, what bliss it would be if I got it! And now the children are at school most of the time, the extra money would easily cover any increased daycare costs, and then some. I am crossing my fingers and toes and legs and … what else can one cross, apart from eyes? Maybe I am still a bit of an optimist.

      Saturday, 20 August

      I am rested, recharged and raring to go after my wonderful, relaxing family vacation with my darling children and beloved husband. Oh, what a splendid time we had! Oh, how we frolicked! And the japes. The japes! One day the children will look back on those golden sun-drenched days, and they will smile fondly at the #happymemories created as they laughed and ran along those sandy Cornish beaches in tasteful knitwear, the wind in their hair and their youth before them. Or at least they will if they look at my Instagram account, which reports on the vacation I would like to have had, as opposed to the vacation I actually had, which mainly consisted of doing laundry, attempting to play an ancient game of Mousetrap that was missing half the pieces, trying to cook in an unfamiliar kitchen and swearing because every damn knife in the place was blunt. Incidentally, why are knives in vacation houses ALWAYS so blunt? Is it because they are concerned that under the pressure to have a marvellous time and keep those #happymemories coming that someone might crack and try to murder their family if they have to listen to one more whine about how everyone else goes to Disney World and why do we have to go to Cornwall (because we are middle-class, darling, and also slightly pretentious), and can we go to Disney World next year? (No, sweetie, because your father hates People.) Then there’s the moaning about why is there no wifi (because we’re here to talk to each other, poppet, and have a lovely time, not stare at our tablets, and yes, I did go outside to get a 4G signal, but I needed to upload my photographs to Instagram because how else will anyone know we are having a lovely time? We ARE having a lovely time. YES, WE ARE! WE ARE HAVING A LOVELY TIME BECAUSE I FUCKING WELL SAY WE ARE HAVING A LOVELY TIME! No, you can’t borrow my phone to play Pokémon Go. Because there aren’t any Pokémon in Cornwall. No, of course I’m not lying to you, why would I lie to you?).

      Were it not for the fact that I am just as adept as the next person at lying on social media, I would be convinced that every other child in the country spends the entire summer vacation in some sort of sun-drenched, golden Enid Blyton world, laughing and frolicking on beaches, skipping through wildflower meadows, flying kites and building sandcastles with their loving parents, but according to Facebook and Instagram, with a little help from a few filters, my children had done exactly the same all summer long.

      Anyway, we are home now, everyone is exhausted after the long and hideous drive, we appear to have brought most of Cornwall’s beaches back with us in the car and the suitcases, and there are vast mounds of laundry to be done, and frankly, I don’t actually know why we bother going on vacation, when you need another vacation to get over going on vacation. But anyway, I do at least have some lovely photos, even if the children did keep complaining that I took too many photos of them and whining about why did I need so many photos and I snarled that I needed the photographs for my dotage, when I was old and grey and they had grown up and left me and all I had to remember their childhood was these photos. I even got a nice photo of Simon, which is miraculous as usually he just pulls stupid faces when I point a camera at him. I suppose at least I know where the children get it from!

      BUT, on the way back, I got a phone call to say that the Dream Job want to see me for an interview! Simon was somewhat dismissive, pointing out that an interview is very different to being offered the job, sighing deeply and telling me not to get my hopes up, but fuck him. It’s a step in the right direction, even if Simon is insisting on raining on my parade as ever. Just for once, it would be nice if he could be positive about something I do and encourage me, instead of always seeing the dark side and predicting dire results. Just a little bloody faith, that’s all! Is that too much to ask? Anyway, much more important than Simon Misery Pants FartFace, is the question of what I am going to wear?

      Astonishingly, Peter’s plant is still alive, despite being abandoned for a week.

      Friday, 26 August

      How many weeks has it been? It feels like forever. Will they ever go back to school? I am starting to lose hope the vacation will ever end. The only bright spot at the moment is the upcoming interview, and the potential to become a high-powered, corporate Proper Person, instead of a dispenser of snacks and referee-er of fights. I suggested today that building a den in the yard might be a fun way to pass the time. The children looked at me as if I had proposed that they should shit in their hands and then clap. Instead, since it was sunny, they demanded to have a water fight instead. Much against my better judgement, as I am firmly convinced that water fights are nothing more than a fast track to the ER with a broken limb, or at the very least some blood and nasty bruising, but lacking the strength any more to argue, I agreed.

      For at least ten minutes they were outside hurling water and screaming before they decided they were bored and cold and instead it would be far more fun to tramp mud and water and grass through the kitchen, use an unfeasible number of clean towels, get dressed in a whole new set of clothes to the ones they were wearing earlier, and then, just as I had mopped up the swamp from the kitchen floor, request to play on the Slip’N Slide.

      I denied them the Slip’N Slide, as we had been fortunate enough to get through the water fight without anyone being maimed, so I was not tempting fate by getting out the plastic Mat of Doom that should really be renamed the Slip’N BreakYourNeck. I pointed out the many wholesome activities available

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