7th March

Mr G gets busy in the garden, the only thing that comes close to giving him as much pleasure as the Japanese loo (we’ll get on to that). While our Asshole Cat torments the local wildlife, he prepares the potager. We’ve a fig, apricot and two plum trees, and he’s planted artichokes, tomatoes, chillies, courgettes, lettuce, and all the herbs. Now, we wait.

18th March

I’m in London for a work trip. Taking advantage of the kids-free time and catching up with old mates, a much-needed tonic in these hellish days. I come back from a meeting and sprawl across my friend Fifi’s bed, shite talking like we did when we were nineteen, not a bit of us altered, except for the elegant soft furnishings, and the husband and baby looking on. (No surer sign of adulthood than a scatter cushion.)

I’ve made new friends, too. A former contestant on Ru Paul’s Drag Race slipped into the old DMs over Christmas to say he loved the memoir. We’ve kept in touch and he asked me to give him a shout next time I was in town. He takes me to a high-end perfume launch, where I’m the oldest by a country mile and everyone is achingly cool (FYI: the chevron moustache is back). I get talking to a guy channelling Big Bird in a yellow feathered coat. He’s just been signed by a major record label and is going on tour with Lily Allen. Another lad tells me he does TikTok. That’s what he says when I ask him about his job. ‘I do TikTok.’ He shows me a few of his reels. I can’t hear what he’s saying in the video over the music, but the general gist is Guy Walks Down Street In Tight White T-Shirt And Pouts At Camera. I’m impressed, seriously. I have nothing but respect for people who can walk and film themselves at the same time. It reminds me of a very serious debate I took part in for Sky News a few years ago.

30th March

I fangirl over a novel on Instagram. The writer in question reads my message and leaves me hanging.

There’s been a lot of concern over the gradual disappearance of the male author. Where have all the literary blokes gone? I’m here to reassure you that, rare a beast as he is, his ego, for one thing, sure ain’t dead. I’ve taken to getting in touch with writers when I’m particularly moved or thrilled by a book. I’m always touched when a reader takes the time to tell me they enjoyed my memoir. Typically, I don’t expect a reply. Barbara Kingsolver makes it clear on her website that she’s unable to respond to personal messages. Fair enough. She’s Barbara Kingsolver, a literary deity. That didn’t stop me emailing her people to tell them I was blown away by Demon Copperhead.

This dude was not Barbara Kingsolver. He was, however, a man. He knew had produced some good shit and didn’t need to be told this. Want to know something revealing? Out of the six authors I’ve reached out to over the past year, the only two not to respond were men. Men who’ve written one book, I might add. Did their debuts do well? Very much so, and fair play to them. Yet the female authors were doubly successful, with more than one work under their belt. So you can relax, y’all, the bruhs be good. Let’s hope their sophomore novels are as quick to fly off the shelves and they can continue feeling highly pleased with themselves.

1st April

It’s April Fools or Poisson d’Avril here in France, where the craic lies in sticking a paper fish on someone’s back. I prefer the prank call and really, I excel myself this year. I phone my friend, who’s head of marketing for a group of fuel stations, to tell her I found a rat’s tail in my ready-made sandwich. I call a lawyer pal and say I need legal advice as there’s a dead man lying on my kitchen floor. I pretend to be the French neighbour of a mate who has a holiday home in the Alps. Like an extra from ‘Allo ‘Allo! I tell her that her chalet has fallen down the side of the mountain. She sighs and asks me if I’ve been drinking.

6th April

Easter weekend in Averyon, our neighbouring county. We rent a gîte in the middle of the countryside and switch off our phones. We play Risk (problematic these days? Sure what isn’t!), read books, let the boys run wild and gorge on chocolate after a sugar-free Lent. Bliss.

11th April

I’m sure you’ve all been dying to know how I’ve been getting on with the Japanese loo. My grandfather was a firm believer in rectal hygiene. He had a bidet in West Belfast in the 1980s. Absolute notions, but he was onto something. It’s well established that cleaning the anus after defecation can prevent constipation, and as we all know, keeping things bottled up is a road to disaster. Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of this important public health message. Mr G, who converted to the anal wash and blow dry during a work trip to Japan, helped me to see the light. My ass has never been happier.

18th April

A weekend of civic duty. We take the boys with us to vote in the local elections. An unnecessary exercise as there is no challenger to the mayoral throne. The socialist in charge of our town has done such a great job no one would dare take him on. Still, we want to drill home the importance of community engagement (also, you get a high-five from the mayor’s deputy when you drop your vote into the box. My inner nerd loves the validation of a job well done.)

Afterwards, the four of us don high-vis vests and join our fellow townsfolk in cleaning up the streets. It’s all going great until I find toilet paper smeared with shit, actual human shit, behind the bins in the park. The work of a blow-in, no doubt, clearly unfamiliar with the Japanese solution to being caught short.

23rd April

I write a tongue-in-cheek piece for a national newspaper about going to a shooting range and it sends readers into a frenzy. Either I’m vegetable-loving libtard, who is insufficiently praiseworthy of firearms, or a bimbo glorifying gun violence. I also want show off my toned arms for my OnlyFans page. ‘What are you on about? They’re not that toned! PS: She looks like Nurse Ratched.’ The one thing everyone can agree on is my derangement.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been trolled. Like any woman online with an opinion, you learn to roll with the punches. Once, I wrote a column after Harry Kane praised his wife for having a drug-free birth. I also had a drug-free birth that required medical intervention when it went tits up. Every woman has the right to be supported in delivering her baby as she sees fit, but I’m not here for the fetishisation of natural childbirth. Bringing a human into the world is a crapshoot. Some of us get lucky, some of us need the help of modern medicine.

Anyway, the result was a Twitter pile on by Spurs fans, who hadn’t read the article but were incensed by a headline (heads up, people: writers don’t write the headlines) that dared venture the England captain might not be best placed to weigh into the public discourse on childbirth.

This time, hats off to the commentators. They actually read the piece in its entirety. It’s a pity none of them have a sense of irony or have read Walt Whitman. We contain multitudes, guys. You can be an advocate of strict gun laws and find it empowering to hold a gun in a controlled setting.

My editor emails to say the feature brought in more people on Google search than any other this week and topped the comments list, so a heartfelt thank you to the haters. Hopefully, you’ll be seeing a lot more of deranged little old me in the future.

24th April

School’s out and Mr G is in Chicago for work. I take the boys to our favourite swimming spot on the river. We picnic on strawberries, and baguettes with saucisson, and the 8-year-old tells me a series of cheese jokes, which delight me in their French-ness. I want to bottle the moment. This, this is what it’s about - the innocence of the pair of them, these tiny moments of connection, cured sausage. This is why we fight on, for Days Like This. (Oops, I quoted Van the Man, more problematic than Risk. May as well set up that OnlyFans page and seal my pariah status.)