Nothing to see here...

....mainly because I'm just plain tired and can't think of anything even remotely interesting to say. It's Monday. The sun is shining but I am stuck in an airless office, surrounded by halfwits. I am skint and I don't get paid until Friday. The Other Half has buggered off to Oslo and I miss him, even though it's only been for one night - I don't like knowing that he's not ten minutes away, as he normally is on the nights we don't spend together. I had to see my mother twice this weekend, and a) she bought Small Person a king-size Mars Bar (hello?? She's five for christ's sake..) and b) I had to talk to her twice this weekend, so that's contributed to my general demeanour of sulky teenager. Also, I'm supposed to be away this week on my work "educational" trip, spending a week in the Scandinavian sunshine sampling the product first-hand, with expenses and more cocktails than you can shake a new liver at. However, since Small Person is only now recovering from the emotional trauma of my trip to Mexico at the beginning of June, sanity and conscience prevailed and I elected to instead stay at home in the hope that it will in some way repair the damage done and spare her from a life of prescription painkillers, therapy and self harm. Bless her little heart - the more times I hear that girl tell me, unprompted, that she loves me, the more convinced I am that it actually might all turn out ok in the end. I'm basically a selfish person (as anyone who's ever witnessed me in the proximity of an open packet of hobnobs will confirm), but being somebody's mother has opened up a selfless side of me that constantly surprises me. On the mornings I drop her off at her holiday club, I watch her running ahead of me up the path and I swear it's all I can do not to cry. She's perfect - all skinny legs and streaming hair, and running for the sheer joy of it. My one wish is that she has a life that brings her as much happiness as she deserves, and that in some way I can contribute to that.

I hope the Other Half brings me a Toblerone.