Charlotte Philby's Parental Leave: "I've committed the greatest faux pas since the bouncy castle deflation"

I've been a bit distracted of late. Most recently by the following email from a distant relation: "Dear Charlotte, thanks so much for the link to 'white kidney bean extract', which sounds wonderful, even better than raspberry-ketones or some other thing I subscribed to on the web that – having provided my credit card number – I went on being charged for and receiving fresh amounts of every month (even though it was a FREE trial)..."

Only after several hours of mind-bending confusion did my husband point out that this was most likely a response to a spam link which my hacked email account had been spewing out to all and sundry. Not a sign of the imminent mental collapse of this ageing relative. Nevertheless, as I say, I've had stuff playing on my mind.

That, at least, is my excuse for having committed the greatest faux pas since allowing the bouncy castle to deflate on my watch at the summer fair: forgetting to send the four-year-old to pre-school dressed in pyjamas for Children in Need. A fact that only became apparent when I arrived at the school gate to find my daughter, incandescent with rage, in dungarees and boots amid a sea of themed separates and slippers.

"Why did I not wear my Spiderman pyjamas to school but Isobel wore her Superman pyjamas?" she probes, kicking her toes along the pavement. "Well," I say, failing to produce an adequately inventive lie, "I'm sorry, mummy forgot." She nods and strokes my arm sympathetically: "Is that 'cause mummy's the f**king tired?"

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