Today I left home early, just like I was a worker once more, to go into town where I had scheduled a few things around the centrepiece of my Christmas work lunch. I began at the osteopath. All the electricity in Hampton Street was down, but luckily osteopathy doesn’t require much power. My hips were poked and one leg was slightly longer than the other due to me being slightly out of whack. On the good side, the osteopath, who has recently taken over the practice from Patrick with the Magic Fingers, was very good. I will return, next week in fact.

The rain continued to bucket. I went to the excellent ‘Bound Words’ bookshop and got myself two schlocky books that I hope not to have already read. L’s mother (the proprietor) was the second person that day to tell me that I did not look as whaley as I apparently seemed to feel, and I looked at her disbelievingly. I then went to meet up with all my work friends, who exclaimed over my bump. We had wanted to have our lunch at Swallows the truly excellent venue for our Christmas party in 2005 - however, our boss’s wife had other ideas and we were doomed to the SchoolHouse Cafe in Brighton where it took more than an hour to get any food, the wait staff had no idea what was on the menu and, who could blame them, as the food, when it finally arrived, was truly abysmal. Despite the surrounds, the company was great and I left, promising to text everybody at the first hint of PartyPie arrival.

Rain continued to dump, followed by an ocean of hail. I visited my mother and she lectured me (as M had already done) about the clear and present dangers of a pregnant person such as myself driving such distances All Alone. [eyeroll] Then on to hair appointment. I know it’s vain and pathetic, but I have wasted good hours this week on those ‘hair and makeover’ sites where you can upload your own photo and put different hair on your own head. “Say goodbye to the BLONDE because it’s GONE!” I shrieked as I left my mother in the dust and drove further around the beach to Amanda the Hair Guru who works out of her Garage.

She was against me going non-blonde, so we met halfway - I have chocolate eclair hair. Half dark, half blonde, with a bit of a fringe chopped in. She has attributed it to me feeling like some kind of perambulating whale at the end of its tether, and the associated hormones. I told her to stop talking and get styling. She did.

I made it back to Trailer Land eleven hours after I’d left, feeling fine, dandy and new-haired. M was exhausted from worrying whether I had survived the day, and I sent him to bed with a flick of my eclair tresses. Mmmm. Eclair.