Holiday

I’ve just had a week off from work and I would love to tell you that my plan of having seven days of debauchery, lying in bed till the afternoon, getting up to have a breakfast of chocolate Easter eggs and then lying around catching up on unwatched Desperate Housewives episodes, came true. But it didn’t.

Life, sadly, doesn’t turn out the lazy way we plan, unless you’re a WAG or a politician. When the first WAG becomes an MP then the game really will be up.

I had written down loads of things to catch up and do this week, and by the weekend I had accomplished most of the important stuff on the list. I had written my quarterly fan letter to the VAT man, a distant bloke who seems never to give any love back despite the money I send him, I renewed my house insurance so my collection of single socks and dead plants are once again protected, I caught up on a few new albums, and I even dropped in on my daughter’s dance class to watch her end of term display. Being the only person not wearing a bra in the room I felt completely out of place and I waited expectantly for my Billy Elliot moment when I would suddenly jump up and join in. To my daughter’s relief, it didn’t arrive.

Last time I watched her perform it was like looking at a class of seals tapping their flippers in time to a beat that was in their heads but not on the CD. This time was magical. Suddenly they had evolved into mini grownups who actually looked like they could stay on their feet and knew that “coordination” wasn’t the street with the Rovers Return pub. I was very proud.

After the dancing I even managed to get out in my garden, although the word “garden” at the moment seems an exaggeration as it has as much colour as an X ray – unless you count the lovely green moss growing in the brown grass and spreading its joy on the patio.

Our plot is around half an acre which is large compared to a window box but small when next to, say, Beth Ditto’s drawers. It’s big enough to warrant me being out there every weekend from now till winter and I did really enjoy the first weeding, clearing and backache.

If you’re thinking “how sad that in his life that passes for fun” then you don’t understand my neighbourhood. Over the garden walls you can catch up on the gossip from the past few months while everyone has been shut indoors, and a quick try out on the kids’ trampoline means I can see what others are having for their tea or what they’re watching on telly. One neighbour even told me he’d seen things from his trampoline that would make my hair curl, and then he shut up before expanding further. I think he suddenly realised he’d seen them going on in my house.

Talking of expanding further, my proudest achievement this week is that I have finally got around to doing something about my waistline, by going back to the gym. I managed five trips this week to do cycling, running, sit ups, weights and the recovery hot chocolate, and I am now officially obsessed with exercise again.

In my mind the pounds are coming off, I no longer look pregnant, I’ll soon be able to squeeze back in to my XXXL pants again, and elasticated waistbands and smocks will be a thing of the past. I’ll even be able to throw away my new T shirt which Debbie uses as a Slanket.

Having a week off is fun. Why don’t we do it every week?