A lovely sunny day so I decide to get the paddling pool out. The foot pump is nowhere to be seen so I have to blow it up myself and as a hardened smoker that's easier said than done. Katie, my 6 year old daughter, laughs as I go from pink to red to purple but eventually the damned thing is inflated. Now to fill it with water, how hard can that be? 10 washing up bowls later, it is finally ready - wish I wasn't on a water meter!
Katie dips a toe in to the water. "Too cold, Mummy".
Too cold?! I'm tempted to tell her she won't notice the cold so much when I shove her in face first but resist the urge and instead add a huge gas bill to my huge water bill and tip in several bowls of hot water.
I plant Katie in the pool and give her a few old bath toys while I sit down for a much needed rest, Pepsi Max and a packet of cigarettes to hand. It crosses my mind that I've been going to quit for ages now but maybe the summer holidays isn't the best time to try!
Ten seconds later, Katie pipes up "Can I get out now?" and I bite my tongue to avoid screaming. She jumps out, takes her swimming costume off - neatly throwing over my penstemons which are just about to flower - and dances round the garden as naked as the day she was born "to get dry" - its a good job we aren't very overlooked!
I decide to recycle the water by tipping it into the water butt that the builders included to make the house seem environmentally friendly but I can't move the paddling pool because it is too heavy. By the time I go back inside to get the washing up bowl and start bailing out, a hole has appeared in the bottom and the vast majority of the water has drained away. Great.
Retrieve Katie's swimming costume and straighten the penstemons - it makes me sound like an old lady but I love gardening. Peg the costume on the line to dry and try to shepherd Katie into the house to get some clothes on. This is met with total refusal but I eventually wrestle her into a longish t-shirt and decide that will do.
Bedtime, thank goodness. Katie settles remarkably quickly, especially considering next door have got a paddling pool the size of an Olympic swimming pool and seem to spend most of the night throwing each other into it with much shouting and splashing.
After watering the garden I sit down with a cup of tea and turn the television on. I treated myself to Sky when I went back to work but I don't know why I bothered because I can never find anything to watch. I've never had Sky before - when Andy (my husband) and I were still together he wanted Sky but then I'd never have been able to watch anything except cricket. Now I have all those channels to myself and I still can't find anything I want to see!
Andy walked out two and a half years ago when he thought the grass might be greener on the other side. It wasn't and he is still single - who's got the last laugh now?! We got married in April 2001 and, because he's too tight to file for divorce and I can't be bothered, we're still married. He's okay I suppose as ex-husbands go, we get on pretty well. He's going very grey now - I married a much older man!
