The bee with the best legs in town

I'm going out tonight in a bee costume that is so skimpy it comes with its own yellow and black striped thong.

It's Jennie's hen do and as I'm here – having chosen the excuse “I'm afraid I can't afford it”, rather than “I'm afraid I'm busy that weekend” in front of a boyfriend desperately trying to make amends through his wallet – I have to play along.

Don't get me wrong, I really like Jennie, although I'd describe her as just a little over-exuberant. I also enjoy spending time with his youngest sister Jo, who has a wicked glint in her eye every now and then. But even more so now, I wonder what they think of me. What is this strange girl doing tagging along to someone else's family?

The hen do has been meticulously organised, not by a bridesmaid, but Jennie who bought everybody's train tickets three months in advance (it would have been earlier if advance tickets were available to buy before that). She has also made brownies and brought sweets for the journey down and packed three days ago.

I'm on a different train and have bought a couple of bottles of bubbly to calm her (OK I know you know I mean me) down when we get there.

I've always been nervous meeting Matt's family. I know they try to piece together our story, why I'm there, where I came from.

The first time I met them, we had gone to stay at his mum's house for the weekend. It was about month before Isobel was born and we were pretending nothing was out of the ordinary.

I arrived after a long day at work, four hours late after bursting a tyre emerging from pitch black country roads into a village draped in blinding Christmas lights and seeing the chicane just a little too late.

I have a knack for first impressions.

The next day we go as a group to view a house Jo and her boyfriend are looking to buy.

It has a small narrow room upstairs and Jennie exclaims: “This would make a lovely room for Izzy to stay in!”

Feeling a bit queasy I make my way outside. When there's no one else around: “So Izzy it is then? Ever going to tell me?”

“Oh I thought I did. Lizzie's decision.”

Next I met Matt's Grandad and step-grandmother, who they all dislike. Their mother's mother died in her 60s, and Grandad, who's now 80, remarried Margaret and moved to the middle of nowhere, where they enjoy sailing around in his boat.

Matt's Grandad is his idol and an awesome character. As a child, Matt went on sailing holidays with him and his grandmother before she died, adventuring on the Italian coast. He also funded him through private school after he got in on a choirboy scholarship. When I finally meet him, he's everything I've been told. An intelligent, kind gentleman who's been everywhere and done everything.

I'm terrified of him. I'm sure he's wondering who the hell I am and why I'm getting in between his great-grandchild's parents. Isobel's about four months old and I'd still never been allowed to see her. Matt started court proceedings to be allowed to take her away from Lizzie's house and had been visiting her less, and from what I could work out, stopped for a period, although we didn't speak of such things.

I'd been handed a glass of red wine and physically shuffled into the middle of the living room so I was standing on the burgundy rug, rather than the cream carpet, and later on Grandad sang On Ilkley Moor Bar Tat to find some common ground with me.

Since Grandad married Margaret, they don't see as much of him. She disapproves of them, but surely she can't wish they were like her own daughter's spoilt nasty twins, they say.

Upon our first meeting Margaret did actually tell me off. It may have been an overreaction, and it may have been more accommodating of her to have held her tongue. But I see a different Margaret to the one they do.

I'd turned up to the dinner party she was throwing for Grandad's 80th birthday with a vegetarian tart, as Matt had told me to do. I found out when the meat was being dished out that no one had explained to her that it was for me, rather than a slightly odd gift.

Margaret told off Matt, his mum and finally me and then had to go lie down.

The posh, old-fashioned lady had planned a big event for an important occasion with lots of people.

She's getting blinder by the day and this will probably be the last dinner party she throws. She can barely see the television and has to grip someone's hand when she crosses the road.

She was probably as nervous as I was about the occasion, seeing her step-grandchildren, who obviously dislike her.

Matt rolls his eyes at me. "She's a pain in the arse."

"The wicked step-grandmother?" He sees where I'm going and shuts up.

I knew part of why I was nervous to meet Margaret was the dredging up of a fear I'd tried to push down, but like the moles in that stupid arcade game with the hammer, kept popping up from a different hole I didn't expect.

Like at a friend's 30th birthday in the function room of a pub. Going outside to smoke I listen in on a 20-something girl complaining to her friend about how she hated her father's new wife. "She can't tell me what to do, she isn't my mother.” This is supposed to just be a cliché phrase from bad films. How old are you?

In Prague, Matt and I visited a section of the National Museum about Czech folk legends. One of the signs told the tale of a Lučan warrior called Straba:

"The Lučan Straba married a Czech girl, captured during one of their raids.

During the fateful battle, his stepmother, a seeress, warned him that he must kill the first Czech who attacks him, cut off his ears and immediately retire from the field of battle.

Straba did so and was the only Lučan who survived the battle, but back home, he discovered his dying wife with a wound in her side and ears cut off."

While I try to make out the point of the tale (don't they usually have a point?), Matt says: "It was the evil stepmother what done it."

Surely he ought to know better.

So, let me get this right, this Straba bloke marries a woman he's captured in a raid? These days that's called kidnap and rape, right?

Since he was the only Lučan to survive the battle, it seems like the "evil" stepmother actually gave the b*stard some sound advice.

And who's to say she wasn't murdered by a Czech who saw Straba disfigure their kinsman in such a way?

I can't find any further explanation about these events on Google. Does the storyteller think his simplistic version gives enough information to understand the tale? For some, like Matt, maybe that's it and I'm the one who's missing something.

Last time we went to Auntie Jennie's, it was so the oldest and youngest members of the family could meet.

Jennie was very excited about the occasion and it was naturally Margaret's fault, rather than Lizzie's, that Isobel was now ten months and they hadn't met sooner.

I knew the situation would not be a comfortable one. The step-grandmother, the not-even-stepmother, over-exuberant family members... I had planned to swerve the occasion in fact. I told Matt I'd join them after work and toyed with which excuse to use. But then I realised this was the last time I see Isobel for four weeks because of Matt's various other commitments. Suck it up.

I drove past the house three times, before I managed to stop.

In the restaurant, Margaret was delightful. She was enamoured by Isobel. The waiter told her she looked like his old maths teacher, who he didn't like. I divided up the bill exactly, so no money was left to give a tip.

But as I'm here now, waiting for the other train of hens to arrive, I'm thankfully quite excited. Our hotel has a swimming pool and spa I'm looking forward to making use of and having bought some shorts to cover my ass, and with my killer Kurt Geiger heels (another plea for forgiveness from Matt's wallet), this bee's going to have the best legs in town.

What happened next

Matt texts and rings constantly the whole of the next day while I stay with a friend.
"Please don't leave me... I've not been this upset since my grandmother died... My whole family keeps ringing me in tears... Isobel needs you in her life."
You did not just say that! Where do you find the nerve?!
He said he hates her, but wanted to get her on his side to make life easier when it came to negotiating over Isobel. He said he did it twice and called it off because he realised it was a mistake, which is why she's angry and made sure I found out. And he said what he said because he didn't want her to know she was hurting us. She'd taste blood and go in for the kill.

Maybe I should ignore him but I want to shout. We spend all day and night arguing. Even if I'm finally getting the truth, it's just so sh*t! What an utter w*nker!

He turns up at the airport having printed his boarding card elsewhere. I sit the other side of the departure lounge, but I have to sit next to him on the plane. His sister relays messages between us and I tell her I'm just sick of all of it. I will be civil to him when I get back home. We will split all joint possessions 50:50, and he can live out a month's notice in the spare room while he finds somewhere else to live and I find a new house mate. But right now, get him to leave me alone.

When I sit down next to him on the plane, I just laugh and take a deep breath.
My edges are all frayed and he looks ill. I tell him I don't want to talk about it any more. It's over and there's no changing my mind but we might as well be civil as we have a lot to organise when we get home.
He agrees and I tuck into my book. He makes small talk and I eventually agree to play Monopoly on his iPhone.
It's a relief after all the brain ache of the last 24 hours just to pretend everything's OK.

I had booked a transfer to the hotel but don't tell him. When I'm convinced he's booked a hostel the other side of town, I divulge the information so we can split the fare.

I spend the day on my own. I have a handful of recommendations from a friend of places to go.
I think most of the bars are off the agenda, but Matt asks to join me and since he promises to behave I think he may as well make himself useful.
I eat. He says he can't stomach anything. There's a vast selection of beer, something I get quite geeky about, and we start to talk.
He says it's time he grew up and stops f*cking everything up. When he gets back he plans to move to London and finish his MBA.
We're like friends talking about someone else's relationship. I quiz him and laugh at his responses. He's amiable and just hopeless.
I don't want to go back to the hotel alone, not least because I can't quite see straight. I tell him there would be no sex and there's still no hope but I need a friend because my boyfriend's a tw*t.
On the way back buying a bottle of absinthe seems like a good idea and ends in a screaming fight and us both passing out at about 7am. When I wake up at 5pm the next day, still clothed but being cuddled, I tell him it's too hard to see him again.

I spend the next few days on my own. I buy a three-day tourist pass and climb every tower in the city. I treat myself to a topical performance of Don Juan at the National Opera House and good-naturedly swap seats in the interval so a couple who bought late tickets can sit together.
I spend the third day at the castle, going in every museum, gallery and enclave and I'm starting to enjoy myself. When...

A text from Lizzie:
Don't be slaggin me off to my man... It's not my fault your boyfriend fancies me more than u... Oh and of course he's crying now, he's not sorry for what he's done, he's sorry he was caught... It's his flaw after all!!

To my memory I had only said thanks for the heads up, they deserve each other.
But while we're at it...
Haha love to get stuck in don't you? Wasn't aware I'd slagged you off. If it had been my intention I'd have had much more to say. You both did me a favour. The real victim of Matt's stupidity is Isobel. That he gave a scutter like you the opportunity to have another kid, especially one born into a f*cked up situation like yours and his, out of revenge or a misguided attempt to trap him, is just disgusting. I just hope she's OK despite you both.

I had expected some defence of her right to be Isobel's mother. But her reply proves to me she truly couldn't give a f*ck.
Trapped him... Think I've proven I can have him whenever I want :-)

A choir assembles in the courtyard and starts singing Oh Happy Day, which makes me smile. So I shove Lizzie a bit further back in my mind and continue my activities.
It's 4pm and I have an observatory to find before I'm due back in town for a big event in the square at 7.30pm. The observatory is somewhere on this hill, which I find as darkness drops is a maze of tiny paths, steps and black ice. I go round in circles for an hour and end up back at the same steep slope that not even in my edgy mood I'll risk taking. I cant see one foot in front of the other, but the opposite way has to be better than that route.
I don't find the observatory, but I eventually find the city centre, close to hysteria but just in time for the event. I join the crowds leading into the square and everyone filter down a walkway next to the shop fronts. Half way down the crowd stops.
For 20 minutes those from behind push forward. Once the spectacle is over those from the front try to effect a turnaround, and also push. In other areas of the square ambulance sirens blaze, which doesn't stop the shovers.
I cling to a pillar as local teenagers push through and indignant men shove the crowd into them in anger.
I love travelling and living in cities, but this one doesn't seem to like me. I shake and cry, close my eyes and cling to my pillar. People can stare at me like I'm crazy if they want.

When eventually the crowd disperses, I find a bar to sit down and order a beer. It's full of young laughing students and the waiter asks me if I'm OK which makes me feel old and stupid.

Matt texts me as he had done every night. "You OK baby?" This time I don't ignore him or tell him not to call me baby. Tonight I need a friend, even if it is him.

We go to another bar and have a quiet friendly night, always reverting to the same questions. And the same answer: stupidity. He didn't realise what he had.

I hold that it makes no difference. How would I ever trust him again? But I recognise the old roguish friend from before we made the daft decision to commit and we get a transfer back to the airport together. The plane's late, then cancelled.
We have travel insurance through his bank account which will pay for a few more days at the hotel, but we get a twin room to keep costs low.
We go for lunch at a fabulous café recommended by the friendly receptionist, who's obviously trying to figure out our story, and spend the day playing pool.

That night, he begs me, says he's never f*cked up so much in his life, says he loves me and wants to marry me.

It may be that I will miss him so much. It may be that he's so convincing I don't want to believe he can lie so impressively. Or I don't want to turn into someone who doesn't believe. It may be that I've never met someone I fundamentally get on with so well, even when I'm supposed to hate them.
He's incredibly selfish and stupid, but I'm not sure that's news to me. Is it better to be with someone who I love more or who loves me more?
And I do believe he loves me. He knows he'll be on trial for a long time, and he now has to face my friends and family. He could have walked away.
I don't have any illusion that it's going to be easy, but I suppose it never really has been. 
I don't subscribe to the doctrine of fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. 
Maybe in future I will. But right now I'd prefer to take one more risk and have the chance that our little family will work out.

The day I wrote my last blog

The day I wrote my last blog post, I sat down at a table for one and ordered a plateful of mussels and a glass of champagne. Maybe people would think I was the wife of some sugar daddy, entertaining herself during his working days by immersing herself in café society and writing poetry.
But if they looked closer, they may have seen the pen ripping through crumpled paper that's the back of a printed-out boarding pass and an altogether less together air.

I had thought about just abandoning the blog. My days as an imposter were as true as I'd feared, and numbered. But then, I got an update from Twitter via text. I had a follower, who had re-tweeted my post. And another one, and then a message of support.
I was upset I could no longer belong to the parental blogging sphere I had started off so bitterly slating, but where I'd actually found solace and a voice.
I decided to scratch the itch and sign off with one last ranting and raving note. The tearing paper, coupled with the champagne bubbles, made me feel slightly better too.

A while ago that I logged into my Facebook account and saw a message from someone I didn't know.
It was entitled “Matt” and the author claimed to be Lizzie's, recently ex, boyfriend.
It included the lines: “They've been f*cking around since September. He's been f*cking her every time he's come to pick up Isobel. At least now I know why she wouldn't let me be there when he came and why he'd started to come up in the week too.”

Matt was away with friends. I text him the message in its entirety. “Absolute nonsense.” was his reply.

The following day, I realised how blessed I am to have such good friends. She made me ring Lizzie and ask for proof. And Lizzie gleefully obliged.
I could tell you how I felt, how the air left my lungs, cold pins pricked in my face and the two sides of my empty stomach beat together.
But I'll show you too, so you can feel it for yourself.

Matt: I don't know. Have denied it.
Lizzie: I'm so mad! Cant believe what he's done! Don't think he'd have done it if it wasn't you but not nice when they cheat with an ex I suppose.
Matt: Yeah suppose. Especially as we have Isobel. Like worst thing.

Matt: Shame we f*ck so good innit really.
Lizzie: Aye
Matt: Oh well if she does dump me...
Lizzie: If she dumps you what?
Matt: Get hotel and do what we got in trouble for properly.
Lizzie: Your remorse is touching...

He didn't try to deny it again.

The waiter in the posh restaurant in the strange city didn't seem fooled. He was kind, if a bit patronising, when he interrupted my furiously scraping pen to ask if Ma'am would like another glass of champagne.

Who is this so callous person?
I'd often wondered if he'd be unfaithful – can leopards really change their spots?
But with Lizzie! Is he mental?
He hates her. She tried to ruin his life. She's tried to ruin Isobel's life with her scheming before the poor thing was even born.
Was any of that even true? Or was all that too a lie? Is this some elaborate conspiracy to take the piss out of the “nice little girl” he said he found so endearing? Was it for my good credit rating so he could talk me into getting the telly that I'd said was too extravagant?
Who is he?
Why talk about marriage and family when he had an arrangement that put him under no pressure to commit? Why make me a part of Isobel's life to the depth he had done?
They're as crazy as each other. And I no longer have any idea who the hell he is.

By the time he'd raced home, the flat was practically empty. No over-sized television, Blue-Ray player or X-Box, no full crate of Sunday Times Wine Club Big Reds, no currency for the holiday we were supposed to depart for the following day, and no printer to print off his boarding pass.
I was afraid he might go mental and even moved the kitchen knives.

I know nothing about this person any more. I can't put myself in his shoes and understand the logic behind this. The only possible explanation is that everything has been a lie and he has been the imposter the whole time.



That was not my last blog post. It's not the end of the story and Matt didn't leave at the end of the month, taking Isobel out of my life forever. Fortunately, maybe hopefully, maybe misguidedly, I remain an imposter. I'll let you know how it goes.

It's the stupid f*cking pink thought that counts

It was April 2010 when Isobel first started staying with us. That was when I changed jobs and Matt and I moved into a two-bedroom flat in the beautiful city that's now home.

I soon realised the spare room, aka depository for all our junk including the Moses basket we never got the chance to use, needed sorting out and more suitable furniture was required. We had a number of lovely little outfits Auntie Jenny had bought Isobel that hung on tiny hangers, lost on the adult-sized clothing rail.

So I set about finding a baby wardrobe, something I soon learnt didn’t exist. And have since learnt why.

I can be quite stubborn and the harder it was to find, the more I wanted a wardrobe. Not a box or a chest of drawers, why not a bloody wardrobe? Surely someone does them in miniature. It happens that they do not.

So I went second hand shopping and found a number of items that surely could be transformed into a miniature wardrobe. I found the perfect thing, it seemed.

A television cabinet for a big fat old fashioned CRT television and a separate section for a VCR was what took my fancy. Or as I saw it, a spacious cupboard with wide opening doors and a compartment beneath for shoes.

Feeling very pleased with myself for having such a great idea, I arranged to pick the cabinet up the next day and two large men hoiked it into the back of my car for me.

I was working a late shift Thursday and Matt would be late back Friday after picking Isobel up. I would put the cabinet in the bike shed and get it ready to present on Saturday morning.

I don't quite now how I managed to manoeuvre the ten-tonne cabinet out of the boot and shimmy it the few feet from my car into the shed.

I then painted the elegant varnished mahogany wood a claggy pink Dulux called “Babe”.

I had a firm idea in my mind of what the baby wardrobe would look like, painted pink with Disney princesses and with a ribbon tied into the top to hold the coat hangers.

Come Friday it was a long way off. But I could get away with hiding it in the spare room - Isobel still slept in our room - and I could gradually add the detail.

It took me about 45 minutes to drag the cabinet the 20 ft across the car park to the front door. I was making sticky fingerprints in the pink paint where I tried to manhandle the load.

I got it to the building and took a deep determined breath. I had two storeys of stairs to get up.

I had pink paint all over my jeans, the top I didn’t think id need to change, the cabinet being shorter than hip height and all, and streaked across one eye where I had had a moment of despair about 30 minutes across the car park. The sticky fingerprints were now deep ridges but I couldn’t go back.

This was war. All I wanted to do was make a miniature wardrobe for a miniature person’s miniature clothes. To hang them on miniature coat hangers. How can something so miniature be so f*cking heavy?!

It was four hours later that Matt arrived home. I had just shut myself in the living room.

“Phew it stinks out there!” he called through the door as I collapsed in an exhausted heap on the floor and hid my head between my knees.

It smelt of white spirit, he explained, and there was pink paint all over the carpets. The fumes have even seeped in here, he said.

I thought I had just managed to hide the evidence. Dragging the cabinet on the doormat along to the spare room and closing the door, scraping my hands with white spirit and and stuffing all other evidence in a plastic carrier bag out of sight.

The red eyes, manic snarl and mop head almost gave me away, but it was the “what's that pink stuff on your shoulder... and elbow...and cheek...hang on,” that confirmed I had been busted.

What my above described appearance did do, however, was prevent further questions when my shaking voice growled. “I’m not talking about this tonight.”

Since that day the cabinet, aka “that stupid f*cking pink thing”, has tried to serve its purpose. Its flaccid ribbon has held some clothes and it has kept toys, nappies and medicines in a central place.

A few weeks ago Matt went on (yes another) boys' weekend. Feeling productive in his absence I tackled some storage issues that had been bugging me for some time. A table next to the sofa, a bedside table, some door hooks and an Ottoman chest. Then I came to that stupid f*cking pink thing. Not only was it ugly but it had become a joke of Matt's, his family and some close friends I confided in about my complete and utter incompetence.

Matt calls it endearing. I call that patronising and think presenting him and Isobel with a beautiful little baby wardrobe - the only one in the world by the way - would have been much more endearing.

I dragged it out of the spare room. When Matt gets back he can help me dispose of this piece of crap, I think.

“No way! We can't get rid of that f*cking pink thing! It has sentimental value.”

Which sentiments exactly he wanted to savour I was unsure. Maybe it was an excuse he pulled so he didn’t have to lift it.

“Mum said she might have a go at it for you anyway,” he said.

Oh no. Did I just hear that correctly? That’s really not fair. As much as it was a failed project it was my project failed project. I can't stand the look of it ugly, but worse would be having to look at it as someone else's success.

Two weeks and four tins of paint stripper later, it's quite similar to how it started. I have bunions on my hands from scraping and sanding and lungs full of fumes and dust.

That f*cking stupid pink thing has cost me well over £100 over the past year, and that doesn’t include the alcohol used to douse the mental flames ignited by the trauma.

I now need to prime it, one face at a time, paint it blue and green (not f*cking pink that's for sure), hook up a proper pole to hang clothes, glue up a mirror on the inside of the door and decorate with images of teddy bears' picnics, The Hungry Caterpillar and maybe even Sponge Bob.

She may have grown out of little clothes on little hangers by the time it's finished, but it's the thought that counts apparently.

The cluttered shelves of an overactive mind

Isobel is now one year old. How quickly it has gone and how much has happened.

We mark the event with a party at Matt's sister Auntie Jenny's house, with his mum and little sister Jo.

I was working so join them in the evening. I drive past the house only once before I dare to stop.

This is an achievement for me. I often find family occasions, usually at pro-active Auntie Jenny's house, intimidating. But that's another post altogether.

This time I can easily pinpoint the fear.

This day, and indeed the whole festive period, carry dark shadows from last year.

This mess was all shoved onto a top shelf in a corner of my brain to be forgotten, until Christmas songs, periods stuck at my parents' house wanting to be elsewhere, certain friends and other festive memory triggers bring it all crashing down.

Isobel started off for me as a concept. She was a baby being born into an awful awful situation. She was a bargaining tool. How horrible to come into the world like that, not really wanted for what she was. Her father hadn't wanted her and her mother's motivations were less than honourable.

The thought of it made panic. What a mess! What a mess!

We didn't really talk about it, which made it easier to ignore. When we did discuss it, I identified my role as his supporter. And I threw myself into that role. It was Matt's situation and it must be hard for him.

Sometimes we talked about what we could teach her, what she would grow up to be. Once we discussed names, running down an alphabetically ordered list.

“What do you think of Isobel?”he said in the same way he'd asked me about 20 others.

“Ugh, no! They're always bitches! Every Izzy I've ever met (three) has either picked on me or been too good to even talk to me.”

And just think, Lizzie and Izzy, ugh. Maybe that's why she chose it or maybe Matt said something. I'll never know and it no longer matters.

The day Isobel became a reality, she was much harder to put back into the box at the back of my mind.

The panic returned in a tidal wave.

Matt was called to the hospital in the morning, and she was finally born at about 10.30pm.

I sat around all day waiting. I continued in my role, taking him to the hospital, dropping him things off, texting him. I felt sick and couldn't eat a thing.

I bought the day's newspapers, some photo fridge magnets, a photo album, some 'It's a Girl!' announcement cards, which remain unopened in the pink baby box I bought, which I go to every now and then to store things I'm sure he'd like to keep.

I couldn't sit still, so I went out and bought pink champagne for us to celebrate when he got home.

Every time I returned to the flat it was unnaturally empty, my housemates like birds before a natural disaster.

I couldn't go to my room where too much privacy just might tip me over the edge. Being in the living room, where anyone could just walk in, kept me in check.

I put on the television but felt irritated by the noise. I sat on the sofa in silence and felt cold pricks on my face. The silence rumbled in my ears and I could feel the blood beating around my head.

If I dared to think of what was unfolding at the hospital, my heart seemed to shudder, rather than beat. I went back outside and just wandered around the shops. I bought a number of greetings cards I could cut up to decorate the photo album I had bought, glitter pens, sequins and beads.

It occupied another hour or so, aligning the illustrations neurotically straight.

I hid my head under the sofa cushion and took ten deep breaths after a stupid slip of the hand.

It was supposed to be perfect for her.

Eventually, a day of clenching every muscle wore me out, particularly my stomach which was in knots. I lay on the sofa and stared uninterestedly at the television, which I decided to endure in case anyone came in and saw me.

Then he called. She'd been born. Exact time, weight etc. Relief.
He asked me to bring the car back to the hospital.

I thought I'd get to meet her, but he dropped me back off home and just took the car to take them home. It would be awkward for me to be there. I should have known that really.

I stayed up to open the champagne. But it was 3am when I text him to ask if he'd be coming home at all. I told him I didn't mind if he stayed, I just wanted to know whether to wait up. He returned at 5am, shattered, and went straight to bed.

With him back, relieved, I resumed my role. I cuddled him and asked if he was OK. Was there anything I could do? I watched over him all night and soothed him when he made noises or ground his teeth.

We woke late and in a panic. He had to get to Lizzie's. His mum and sisters were coming to visit Isobel and were going straight there. It took me a while to realise I wasn't going with them. And it hit me round the head like a club.

I avoided him, sorting laundry in the spare room. He can't leave me here to another day like yesterday.

Lizzie was the one in the wrong in this situation not me. I'm the one made to feel illegitimate, while they all play happy families. Lizzie knows we're together and this was her choice. Surely she just has to endure my presence.

My knackered body tried to wretch up bile from its empty stomach as I made another realisation.

My role as Matt's shoulder to lean on dissolves as the difficult situation suddenly turns into a beautiful outcome. She's no concept for him. He holds her in awe of what he now has. They're all so happy.

Cold sweat pricked through my face as the panic descended.

The panic drove me to Matt's apartment in the Midlands where I dug his bottle of Tanqueray out of the freezer with the intention of seeing in the New Year oblivious to it all. But I couldn't stomach anything stronger than half a cup of black tea.

I shuddered under a quilt on the sofa and didn't move for two days as I worked out how to breathe through the crushing pressure on my lungs as I was being left out of this enormous event affecting both our lives.

A long time ago now, but still very raw underneath the surface.

I take a deep breath and knock on the door. Auntie Jenny greets me with Isobel on her shoulder.

She's wearing a purple satin party dress, with netting underneath to poof out the skirt, lined with sequins and with a matching pouch handbag.

She grins and stretches her arms out to me as soon as she sees me on the doorstep.

“She's missed you!”

I pick her up and take her into the living room where I carefully pick out a route through the toys on the floor. A waddling duck on a rope, an electronic Thomas the Tank Engine which chugs and peeps, a rocking donkey and a couple of helium balloons. I'm happy they've not yet opened the present I bought her and have also left the cake until I arrived.

I'm handed a plate of food from one set of hands, while another set whisks Isobel off to show me what she can do with her new walker.

Within minutes she's struggled free and is by my feet, arms outstretched for me to pick her up. Securely back in place, she rests her head on my neck and holds on tight.

That little experience gets pride of place on a shelf at the very front of my brain, where I keep the things that cheer me up.

Picture perfect?

You already know of course that Matt and I survive the drama.
Nothing thrusts you into adulthood more violently than having children, I'm told.
Matt was inconsolable. He didn't want to bring a child into the world this way.
His own father left when he was seven and is now living out his retirement in Thailand.

After the initial shock, Matt needed a friend and if I could define any part of my relationship with him, it was our friendship. I stood by him, but with half an eye on the door, ready to bolt.
I promised my friends I wouldn't let it get too far. If I couldn't trust him before, this only confirmed that.
Matt had always imagined he would eventually grow up, despite being almost 30 and not having made much progress.
He had only just converted the word 'job' into 'career' and wasn't exactly on the right path towards sustaining a meaningful relationship.
But from somewhere, he expected to end up with 2.4 children, a suburban semi, an Audi Passat and a wife who he can still have good sex and a laugh with a few years in.

With the exception of the latter, Matt's dreams varied greatly to mine.
I had a vague picture of being shacked up with kids and a hubby one day, but would have to overcome the obstacle of all men being tw*ts, which seemed too much hard work.
Children also scared me. Rather the hazardous effects they may have on my business suits scared me when I encountered them on public transport and it annoyed me that I couldn't block them, and their effing and blinding mothers, out with my iPod.
And suburban communities make me want to vomit.
I grew up in middle class commuterville and at the age of 13, started working in my local pub, from which I was privileged to witness the kind of person I did not want to become.

I could write another blog or an entire novel about this time of my life, which I believe was also the beginning of my superiority complex.
My friends have often joked that I should publish Memoirs of a Village Barmaid, but that's another story.
In short, I've spoken in hushed voices with the so-called respectable men who hoped I'd take pity on them if they told me they no longer had sex with their wives.
I've got cigarette burns collecting glasses from the women who were 20 years and three kids older than me.
And I've watched five-year-old Tommy, who was as much part of the 'early doors' crew as his parents were, being drilled one day by his grandmother. "My fahther's car is a Jaguah and he drives it rahther fahst."
Meanwhile 'fahther' raced to the scene on his front garden where mummy was pouring Châteauneuf-du-Pape on his best shirts for gambling away Tommy's college fund again.

I don't think now I could leave the blessed anonymity of the city.
Where I can walk down the street with tears streaming down my face without starting rumours.
Where I can turn off my phone and walk for hours without bumping into anyone I know.
Where I can shout at a rude stranger when I'm in a bad mood without expecting to see him again.

One day, Matt awoke suddenly to find that instead of a distant dream, he was somehow already halfway there.
With a baby on the way, his 30th birthday approaching and a place on a fast-track leadership course within a plc, I was the final piece of the jigsaw.
A nice girl. Great fun to corrupt, but also a keeper.

Explosive arguments about betrayals, about Nick and Lizzie and about our different hopes and values maybe should have warned us off.
Instead, it showed us we couldn't be just friends.

Now we live in a messy two-bedroom flat in a beautiful city that suits both our careers.
Every weekend we have a gorgeous happy little visitor who is allowed to dribble whatever she wants on my clothes.
I have Disney compilations on my iPod and babble away with her all day, rather than trying to block her out.
Here's to the best risk I've ever taken.

Beans

I had been apprehensive about Christmas.
My favourite festive song (Fairytale of New York of course) just evoked the feeling of static charge from the storm that was threatening to break over this period last year.
And I don't expect the divvying up of important family dates, namely Isobel's first Christmas followed by her first birthday (on consecutive weekends when she would normally be staying with us) to go smoothly.
But last week that feeling changed.
Isobel stayed with us again after almost four weeks' gap.
She was wearing a fleecy Snowman bodysuit grandma bought her and looked and felt like a cuddly little teddy bear.
"I'm a real girl!" Matt squeaked in a cute Pinocchio reference when I lifted her and cuddled her all up.

She's running around in the same suit today, and we'll go out in the snow later in her reindeer hat and booties.
All is back to normal.
Matt and I have had yesterday's leftover Yorkshire puddings and gravy for breakfast and Isobel has found a box amid the mayhem on the living room floor to play in.
Which gives me a few more minutes to continue my story...

After the weekend that changed everything, I cooled things with Matt.
We spoke and texted as if nothing had changed, but I realised I was getting in too deep, felt hurt and decided to spend my time instead having a giggle with Nick. He was silly and fun and safe because he was leaving the country in a few months to study as a mature student in Spain.

But a few weeks later Matt wanted to visit. It was one of his friends' birthdays and he wanted me to go with him.
I've never really known how to say no to him.

I had told Nick I might be able to meet him after work, but hadn't said for definite. So I let Matt in and started to get ready to go out.
Nick was furious. He'd waited all day for confirmation from me. He'd got stuck with his housemate's awful family instead of taking up a better offer from friends because he was waiting for me to pop round.
He called while we were getting ready to go out. He wanted to come and pick up his oversized jumper I had borrowed but no longer deserved to wear.

I threw a paddy at Matt. "We're going to be late and then you'll blame it on me. It's always my fault when we're late!"
Actually it's usually his because he pounces on me when I'm getting dressed up and it tends to ruffle me up more than it does him.
"Go! Shower. Now. Hurry. Up!"
Matt, shocked, obeyed, ten seconds before Nick rang the doorbell.

I didn't care if Matt heard but didn't want to hurt Nick more than necessary. I gave him back his jumper and he scolded me for being selfish, then left.

My housemate Gemma, who was watching the soap opera unfold from the living room sofa with her boyfriend, quoted from a Confucius calendar she had on her desk at work.
"If you don't like beans, you shouldn't have opened the tin." Her arm was outstretched for me to gulp from her glass of red.

Matt didn't hear Nick come round, but later that night, he found condoms hidden down the side of my bed.
We didn't sleep together that night. He sulked and pushed me away. "I thought we were more than that," he told me.
I told him he had double standards and he agreed.

Two days later, I got a text of two horrifying words: "Lizzie's pregnant".
I told him I was very happy for them.