The morning dressing race. I win because I put my clothes on rather than sitting on my bed in my socks and underwear building an unidentifiable item out of lego. My winning technique is tried and tested and works every time. D starts shouting that it's not fair and that he's won really. Whatever. I can afford to be magnanimous in victory.

We're on speaking terms again when we walk to school. Or rather D speaks to me, interminably, telling me the most obscure parts of the plots from all his latest videos. Is this a boy thing or do girls do it as well?

I've noticed D isn't the only one of his friends happy to rattle on for hours about film plots. At least he doesn't seem to need a very attentive audience. I confess I hardly listen, just going: "Really?" "Great" "Did he?" at intervals. Really Bad Mother, I know. I should be interacting with my child. But I draw the line at sitting and watching endless reruns of Stingray so that I discuss the finer points of the plots.

Sunday afternoon

To the Made in Deptford festival. Note to non-Londoners and international readers: Deptford is meant to be the new face of trendy, arty South London. The festival description sounds great - open artists' studios, art exhibitions, street dancing, music, world street food.

Not quite. A couple of stalls selling Jamaican and Nigerian food and a group of children in sweatshirts billed as a "high energy performance" trying to keep up with the music blaring out of the sound system. We follow directions up the road to a place which is supposed to have an art exhibition. It turns out to be a pub filled with afternoon drinkers.

No-one's heard of any art exhibition. A helpful but very drunk Jamaican clutching a can of lager gives us more information than we'll ever need on the pub's former name. We give up.

Home to the newspapers which reveal that the word "wicked" (meaning brilliant) is obsolete. No-one's told D or his friends, who use it all the time. When they're not describing something as "cool", their other big word. Giving people "respect" doesn't seem to have caught on in the reception class yet but give it time. Tony Blair and the Queen have only just got into it, after all.

Saturday

Drive to my mother's for lunch. The car journey is one long stream of blame and criticism from the car seat in the back. "Why can't you go faster?" D asks as we sit in a solid traffic jam outside the Earl's Court exhibition centre. "Don't go so fast!" as we pass Lambeth Palace and negotiate the tight roundabout onto Lambeth Bridge. We've got to stop the car so that he can reach his toy double decker bus which he's dropped under the seat. We've got to go home so that he can set up a rescue operation for Stingray.

I desperately need a very large drink when we get to my mother's. I wish. But I'm the only driver so I have to stay sober. E is suitably grateful for my sacrifice. If I didn't drive, she'd have to get behind the wheel for the first time since she passed her driving test in 1986.

My mother nobly offers to play a matching numbers card game with D and E. He'll stop at nothing to win, grabbing everyone else's matched pairs of cards to his own pile, crying when it's not his turn and pushing everyone out of the way to get to the cards. So much for the lovely manners Mrs B thinks he has. Time for some early nights and strict rationing of treats.

Friday

Open the piano for the first time in months. D wants me to teach him how to play. No way. I don't want the responsibility of knowing that I've lost my temper with him while trying to teach him and put him off playing the piano for life. I could be depriving the world of a brilliant talent.

Or maybe not. Definitely not, if he follows my example. I can hardly get it together to sightread Three Blind Mice after not having practised for five years. Every time I try to play, D joins me for an impromptu duet. His part involves thumping on the bass notes as hard as he can with the palms of his hands. Time to bring in the experts who can teach him that you play the notes with your fingers.

Thursday

The shame of it. Our neighbours who have several children around D's age have sent round some cast-off clothes. Maybe they've noticed him walking down the road in trousers so short that he can walk through a puddle without getting them wet. But we're not about to turn up our noses at clothes wherever they come from. Anything which saves us having to trawl round the shops.

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