There are places I visit that I would never dream of going to if I didn’t have kids. For example today, a burger bar complete with formica tables, bright posters of impossibly coloured meals, the smell of grease drifting around like mist and the general background babble of family noise with children’s high pitched giggles and wails. Waitresses with baseball caps and butcher style aprons writing on miniscule pads with stubby pencils. Chips, burgers and loads of ketchup and hot sweet tea. Thoughts of where I’d rather be..the corner of an old pub with a log fire, a Salad Nicoise and huge glass of red wine, or a little bistro with attentive waiter, superb pasta and a carafe of said wine.

I find myself freezing on the sidelines of football - which bores me to tears - when I would rather be jogging along a beach, or kicking leaves on a woodland walk.

I visit public toilets and try to ensure Chloe touches as little as possible. Once outside I insist she, and the boys rewipe their hands with sanitizing gel and wet wipes. I would just wait cross legged, till I reached home.

I walk down great cold white supermarket aisles heaving with toilet rolls or baked beans and pile a trolley with huge boxes of cereal, canned tuna, frozen fish fingers and squash, aware that were I single I would visit the greengrocer and a smart upmarket store, or even shop online to get the basics while I visited the greengrocer or local farmers market to stock up on fresh locally sourced vegetables, meat and fish.

I trawl great shoe and clothes department stores instead of select boutiques.

I go bowling and putting, visit play parks, and child friendly pubs with play areas instead of playing tennis or golf, visiting art galleries or the theatre and sitting at a tavern in a well known beauty spot.

But I revel in family moments of hysterical laughter, impossibly complicated board games, cosy cups of hot chocolate and story time before bed, sweaty hugs that clutch me wholeheartedly, the shared pool of humour which only we understand, the ragged messy, chaos of love as we each spill into each other’s lives, instead of sitting tidy, clean, cultured, elegant and alone.

Ben has just told a rude joke and Chloe and Timmy are giggling. They are all finding it funnier because they are not sure if (a) I heard it, (b) I got it, and (c) if I did get it whether I might be just about to tell Ben off.

It was quite funny and quite rude so I don’t know whether to (a) pretend I didn’t hear it, (b) pretend I didn’t get it, (C) tell Ben off, or (D) try and remember it to tell friends when we next go out. I pretend I didn’t hear it, because option D would make me into a hypocrite if I told him off. However I know I won’t use option D, as I can never remember jokes. Occasionally I have got the punch line so wrong it’s made people laugh far more than the original joke would have.

Female friends I know aren’t great at telling jokes but Gary, along with my brothers and most male friends can reel them off, never forgetting a punch line.

There is definitely a difference between the male and female memory.

Gary remembers car manufacturers, football scores, obscure DIY tools he needs and things his Mum cooked when he was eight. He forgets the number of beers he’s drunk, where he’s put anything he’s ever had, what I wanted for Christmas and (when his mobile battery is dead) my phone number.

I remember things like feeding the dog, feeding the children even, gossip, first loves, birthdays and how to get chewing gum out of hair, but forget what I went to get, when I arrive in Timmy’s bedroom, the main item I went I into the supermarket for and the fact that when my ex mother-in-law visits, she always looks in my fridge and finds dishes of bacteria and prehistoric cheese.

It would be interesting to swap my memory for his just for one day, then I’d (A) find out if there was really such a thing as a double worm screw, (B) if his Mum was really such a great cook, and (C) what he thinks I want for Christmas!

The Stepford Wives are alive and well, selling perfume and lipstick in major department stores near me. As I stagger in with shopping bags which hurl themselves to the floor, my scarf catches in the door. I let go of the bag handles and step back three paces to save my puce face from further discolouration from strangulation and embarrassment. I manage to disentangle the scarf, gather my randomly scattered bags and smooth my windswept hair and rain spattered face.

Then I notice the stepford girlies, their shiny pink rosebud lips shaped in patronizing simpers as they look from me to each other and raise their impeccably drawn eyebrows slightly, (not enough to cause a wrinkle and send them rushing off for a botox fix.)

I walk past as they stand, torpedo-boobs and non-bottoms captured in miniature white coats, long red fingertips twitching around to find a little duster to wipe off any untoward rain splatters that have been impolite enough to scatter themselves on to their counter.

I can look nice, honestly. I just don’t glide around looking like Victoria Beckham or Madonna on a daily basis, or do factory production line style exercises. One two three four, thirty two, fifty six,…..” At eleven a bell rings and they clock off for a glass of water and three cress. Eleven fifteen and off they go again, “Fifty seven, fifty eight….,”

Would most women rather do that amount of press ups for a perfect stomach or put up with a bit of childbearing bulge? Many of us are modelling the answer.

The time for looking perfect is limited no matter how much you spend on line busting, face smoothing, wrinkle ironing, lip puffing lotions and potions. But I still lather on expensive superplenamin multiwrinkle vanquishing cream daily. This morning, peering at my imperfect face in the mirror, I decide to ask for my twenty quid back, because I’m worth it.

Sunday Sunday. The birds were tweeting as we skipped to church. All the shops were closed which made us so happy to have that special family bonding time. I made a lovely roast meal while the children played quiet games and read books. NOT! The sound of children shouting woke me. I staggered to the fridge for milk to make a cuppa and discovered that Timmy had fed the last of it to Fubby, our huge fat Labrador who needs milk like a dragon needs a lighter.

Throwing some jeans on and telling the kids to do likewise we piled in the car and headed for Asda. I left Ben to tie Fubby somewhere so she didn’t bake in the car. The store was heaving with families. Asda is church! Timmy and Chloe grabbed a trolley and headed for the DVD’s while I shrieked ‘NO’ in my witchiest voice scaring three old ladies and the greeter but doing nothing to faze my kids. “We just want a quick browse….” Chloe started. Ben appeared and noticed the trolley. “Oh cool are we doing a big shop?”“

“No we are getting milk and going home. I haven’t even had a cup of tea yet,” I squeezed the words through gritted teeth and felt like an old bat as they gave each other ‘humour her’ glances, ditched the trolley and followed. I was assailed with so much healthy eating propaganda after purchasing milk and three cheer up Mum’s not so bad, chocolate bars, I felt I had just bought them poison.

Outside, Fubby had disappeared. Panic, tears from Timmy, searching, asking people, and then somebody pointed to the other side of the car park where a trolley was being pulled along by a big fat Labrador. Ben suffered such an ear bashing on the way home that he chucked his chocolate bar at the others, went to his room and played Babyshambles full blast, all day. Chloe ate both chocolate bars, felt a spot sprouting and loudly wished for a proper mother who bought healthy nutritious treats. I drank tea and pondered the rest of the day. It was just 11am. Timmy consoled Buffy with the rest of the milk.

Why is it that most women in life have done this at some point or other? There always seems to be a brilliant reason at the time but later when you think about it, why would it every be necessary? The last time I did this it was because I had a house full of friends and we had just been shopping. I was trying on a top that needed a strapless bra. The company was mixed so I wriggled and wiggled the bra out through the sleeve. Why I didn’t disappear and use the bathroom or bedroom i don’t know! Wine, chat, not wanting to go away from the group….who knows. It’s wierd but every woman has done this at least once and also taken knickers off by only removing one jean leg and slipping them down and through this…now that is even stranger…why would we do that?? But most of us have!

Today my stomach feels like a cream puff, my boobs are bulging like water balloons and I have a treble chin! During the night my body has spread like dough. I eat chocolate, cakes, nuts, chips and bananas for breakfast, but I am still hungry. I feel tired and dreary as I trudge around getting the kids to school and trying to avoid the irritating idiots who people the world. I regret a stop at the supermarket immediately, when the elderly clutter the aisles. Meeting my friend Karen to go clothes shopping, annoys me further because the sales staff are positively evil, leaping out from behind displays to offer me jeans and little jumpers while smirking at my fatness. Karen tries to get me to buy jeans that make my bottom look like a giant beanbag; some friend!I get home and boyfriend Gary leers at me and pretends to fancy the gross lump that I’ve become. When I yell at him for being such a dishonest creep he says I’m being unreasonable!

Later, Mum Cathy babysits and we go out. I have a large glass of Shiraz, a starter, main course, pudding, another glass of Shiraz, and chocolate on the way home. The waiter is slow, the table not the one I wanted and nerd Gary chats about the stupidest things; vacuum cleaners, dentists and money! I want to shout, what about life, the universe, eternity? But I just munch my apple pie and custard and feel the weight sludge down and add itself to my heaviness. Nerd brings me tea in the morning. It’s strong and sweet and he looks the same. The sun is shining and I feel a surge of love and beam at him while I sip my tea. Later I walk through streets of paving stones and people, to meet him for lunch. The elderly have speeded up, my clothes fit and my bottom feels small and cheerful. Life is just wonderful.

‘Mum you aren’t going to go out in that!’ says Chloe as I sweep glamorously down the stairs ready for an evening out with Gary. The babysitter feigns deafness.

“What’s wrong with it?” I ask, reasonably enough.

“Everything!” Chloe says, storming off, trampling my confidence underfoot, without bothering to help scrape it up again.

In the bathroom mirror the figure hugging red top and French skirt made me look young and sexy. The downstairs mirror is making me look like one of those toilet roll cover dolls.

Gary arrives. “You look nice,” he says.

Nice! Not sexy, attractive, amazing or gorgeous, just nice. “No I don’t., ‘ I mumble. ‘ I’m going to change,”

“We’ll be late, tables booked for eight. Anyway you look fine.”

Fine, like nice, means nothing. He looks gorgeous but I’m now too miffed to tell him.

Fashion after thirty is one big headache. How will I know when I am mutton dressed as lamb unless someone tells me, but how can I believe a child who wants to look like Amy Winehouse?

I just want to be reasonably fashionable for my age. I wouldn’t wear a smock top made of cobwebs or hipsters half-way down my bottom with a thong hoiked up my back because (a) I would look ridiculous and (b) even IF I didn’t, I know exactly what would happen. Ben would swear he doesn’t know me, especially if he was with his mates. Then he would wear his most threadbare ripped jeans with the huge hole in the bottom, and his scruffiest, scariest Goth hoodie, every time I wanted the family to look reasonably respectable. Chloe would shriek loudly, preferably in public; ‘I am NOT having a mother dressed like that,’ and storm off either in a major sulk or floods of tears depending on the audience. Timmy would roar with laughter, draw a picture of me which exaggerated every flaw and secretly give the outfit to Fubby to chew.

I would hate to become one of those grannies looking like decorated Christmas trees when the needles have dropped; belt sized skirts atop vein knobbled legs, sparkly tops showing creased leather cleavage; but I don’t plan to enter beige-cardi territory either.

At dinner Gary stokes my leg under the table. “You look gorgeous tonight, “he says. “Really fantastic.”