It was quarter to six on Tuesday evening and the bambino had woken up really late from a nap, totally scuppering my promise that day to manage my time more effectively. After weighing up the pros and cons of having to go to the supermarket in the morning, I decided to bite the bullet and do a mad dash to Waitrose. The plan was to be back inside the house within fifteen minutes. I grabbed my handbag, pushed the bambino in the pushchair down the steps, slamming the door behind me, got to the bottom and a horrible thought crystallised. “Oh sh*t! I think I’ve left my key!”

As I rifled through my bag, panic filled me and after practically emptying the contents out on the street, I yelled “F***********************CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC..” then remembering that the bambino was with me, quickly changed to “FFFFFFFFFLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK FLOCKITY FLOCK FLOCK FLOCKING FLOCK FLOCK  OH EFF IT F*******************CCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK!”

I’m sure that birds in Central Park were startled out of their perches, nevermind the birds in this country…

It was now six o’clock on one of the coldest evenings that we’ve had for a long time and the bambino and I were locked out with no food, nappies, and no daddy coming home in forty five minutes because he was in Germany….

I belted it down the hill to the locksmiths that’s round the corner, but he was closed and the silly twat never did respond to my message that I left on his ‘emergency’ line….This is what you get for living in the country…

I phoned the boyf’s bro in a panic and it came to light that in eight months of living here, we hadn’t given the spare key to anyone. As I paced around Waitrose randomly filling up my basket, I felt like crying as I held on the line whilst the boyf’s bro booked a locksmith for me. Ten rounds of the supermarket and the bambino, sensing that something was very wrong, went ballistic and let out one of her “let me the hell out of this pushchair before I make a holy show of you” howls.

I left there feeling utterly desolate and as I walked down the high street I felt tears prick my eyes as I said to the bambino “We’re homeless!” Now I know this is a touch melodramatic but I was a bit hormonal and at the time it made total sense.  The bro called me and told me that he didn’t care how stubborn I was and that I was to go and sit next door at my neighbours. As I walked up the hill, I cursed the boyf for being in Germany and within a minute I’d decided that he had to get a new job and that if he hadn’t been in away, he would have been letting me into the house instead of me hanging around the streets with our child like waifs and strays.

Just before I knocked on my neighbours door, the rational part of me kicked in. “NML, are you serious? What are you going to say when he says ‘So you want me to leave my job because you got locked out of the house?’ Are you cray-zay?!”

My neighbour opened the door after a couple of knocks.  I explained the situation and promptly burst into tears. Being English, we were both drinking tea within a few minutes as the bambino ripped apart her newspapers and it turned out that my neighbour had thrown her boyfriend out about fifteen minutes before I arrived. Suddenly bitching about men passed the time until the locksmith arrived…

So including getting the spare keys cut, I am now £110 (close to $220) lighter in my pocket. Much like bad sex, the locksmith getting in and out of my house took about three minutes…

I had to do another supermarket dash yesterday because I’d forgotten to pick up formula. Later on when I was in the supermarket (yet again), I went to pay for the basket of goods only to realise that my purse was sitting in the carrier bag on top of the counter in my kitchen…. “FFFFFF…I mean fiddlesticks!” I said, quickly correcting myself.

“What’s wrong? Is everything OK?” asked the woman behind me who had a very young baby in his carseat in the trolley.

“I’ve left my bloody purse at home” I grumbled.

“Oh that happened to me earlier” she exclaimed. “I had to bloody well go all the way home, get my purse and do the whole bloody shop all over again!”

“Really?” I said in surprise and we both howled with laughter in the queue.

“Yeah. Well it’s nice to know I’m not the only person to ever have done this because I was really upset earlier!”  she smiled.

And all of a sudden I stopped giving myself a hard time for being a scatty, disorganised, poor time managing mother. Lots of people are like me.

“Oh don’t worry about it” I said. “I locked myself out of the bloody house a few days ago” and we cracked up laughing again.

Note to self: Must try harder to be more organised and must stop going to the supermarket so many times a week!

Another note to myself: Must find the time to read the book on time management.