In The Powder Room

You know how many parents bang on about how much they love holidays because they get to spend a whole fortnight with their kids? Well, excuse me for missing a maternal gene, but to me they are talking nothing but bollocks.

You see, as much as I love the idea of spending a fortnight with Kraken Junior I can honestly say that by day four I become overwhelmed by the urge to thrust my head into a grinding cement mixer. It's not Kraken Junior's fault. God, no. The kid is so good that I'm this close to asking Maury Povich to confirm that she actually contains my DNA.

It's my fault. See, I like to be alone, a bit like Greta Garbo but with a bad temper and a dangerously weak pelvic floor. Since 2003 I have spent most weekdays alone, either as a freelance journalist or as a woman recovering from a lobe-melting breakdown. I've managed to narrow down my socialising to my husband and child on the evenings and weekend, with the occasional friend or family gathering thrown in when cake has made me freakishly buoyant.

So when I'm forced to swap this heavenly solitude for eight straight hours of playing imaginary tea-parties with Kraken Junior I start to unravel. By the time I have endured this every day for a fortnight I'm actually drop kicking her out of the bedroom window to make sure she goes to school and leaves me with five whole minutes on the toilet without having to discuss where babies come from as she points and shrieks at my unkempt foof.

Seriously, when everyone else became parents were they handed a guide to enjoying holidays? If they were then I must have been too busy swearing at my midwife to notice. I assume said reading material included tips for surviving a full 336 hours of ceaselessly confusing questions, laughing at turds and the whining that ensues when within a ten mile radius of a museum, gallery, coffee shop or any other location that doesn't include a Jungle fucking Gym.

I suspect that this admission of mine makes Joan Crawford look like Angelina Jolie on the mothering spectrum. I shall be shunned by travel agents and holiday companies the globe over. And you know what? That suits me fine. I'll wave Kraken Junior off at the airport and go back to having peace, sweet peace.