Am all set up for the day after a restful breakfast with two cups of coffee and a long read of the papers. How do I manage it? Simple – it’s E’s turn to take D to school. I admit to a certain schadenfreude as I hear them arguing in exactly the same way as D and I normally do. So I’m not the only one who loses her temper when D shouts: “No!” at a polite request to get up/get dressed/brush his teeth/put his coat on. After an hour of this I defy anyone to leave the house with temper intact.

Ruth Kelly, the boyish education secretary, has another great idea about how to teach children to read. Or rather, she’s dusting down the old idea that you learn to read by spelling out each letter rather than looking at the page and hazarding a guess. All suggestions gratefully received if they improve D’s performance. Here’s a sample: “They looked, dunno, into, dunno, went, dunno.”

Wednesday

Rush back from work, jump into the car without taking my coat off and drive like a maniac to collect D from his childminder’s house. Like all childminders who value their sanity, she operates a system of fines for errant parents who arrive more than a couple of minutes late to collect their children. When we get home, D has a tantrum because I’ve opened the car door for him rather than letting him do it himself. He goes on and on shouting: “It’s not fair” even when we’ve been home half an hour. And I thought I was being kind holding the door open for him.

S, our childminder, says all children are like that at this age. I press her on how long she reckons it’ll go on for. “Who knows?” is her disconcerting reply.

Our nearest gay bar has a 24-hour drinking licence, reveals the local paper. We’re not booking the babysitter (aka Granny) just yet. The only time we went, we were the only people there, the wine tasted like vinegar and even the bar staff were talking in whispers. Alright, so it was only 9.30pm. Maybe everything hotted up after we left at 10pm to tuck ourselves into bed with a cup of tea.

Tuesday

Off to work on the Docklands Light Railway with hundreds of other people crammed into every space and studiously avoiding each other. Except for a well-dressed man who starts objecting to the woman next to me filing her nails and spraying the results onto his immaculate coat. “I don’t want your dead cells on my coat,” is his charming opening gambit. She replies in kind and they start arguing. Before I realise it, I’ve put my finger to my lips and said “shhh” as if I’m trying to calm down two small children. Too much time with my own child and his tantrums, obviously. But, amazingly, it works and everyone starts laughing. A career in the diplomatic service beckons. Or maybe not. I couldn’t keep it up. I’m normally the one who starts the argument.

Less than a month to go until the first gay couples are joined together in civil partnership. Everyone’s going to do it – Elton and David, George Michael and Kenny Goss, our friends in St Albans. Everyone claims they’re going to have very low key ceremonies with just their parents and very close friends. Bless. But do you believe it? Do you heck. Any excuse for a blow-out. Here’s a taster of one planned for next year. ‘The grooms will wear matching pink suits, walk down the aisle serenaded by an all-pink choir in a castle decorated with pink feathers, glitter and flamingos.’ I rest my case.

This is followed by an exotic honeymoon, that is, if you can find a honeymoon. Ever keen to bring bad news, London’s freesheet, Metro, warns, “British travel agents will struggle to provide enough gay honeymoons when the Civil Partership bill becomes law.” Disaster. But why do you have to wait for a travel company to package up a holiday labelled ‘gay honeymoon’?

If E and I ever sign up to a civil partnership, we’ll probably end up spending a week in the rain in the Lake District.

E’s colleagues are already asking her if we’re going to have a civil partnership ceremony. My answer is no way. It all sounds far too stressful. And that’s just the ceremony. What if they’re out of pink flamingos?

Sunday

Leaves on the lawn. Cue another argument as I try to sweep up all the leaves as quickly as possible so that I can go and do something more interesting, and D, who wants to help. But only on his terms. Put the leaves into bags? Sweep up the leaves on the deck with a dustpan and brush? No, he wants to sweep the leaves into piles with the big broom and nothing less will do. Of course it’s far too big for him and he hits himself painfully on the head then goes indoors howling. What’ll the neighbours say?

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