The day I lost my sense of humour

So it started with a mild hangover. A cocktail hangover from a night out with my friend Sam - supposed to see Sex and the City (we hoped to go back in time to '98 and remember when we wore g-strings, too much lip gloss attitudes and kissed bad 'uns, young 'uns and sometimes any 'un within reach - heady days of private members clubs, bad dates and vodka redbull). You can't see STAC without having a cocktail or 5 - it would be rude not to. We met at Hakkasan - I drank lychee martinis and then a glorious rose water one - heavenly - and then... oh yes a cucumber martini - surprisingly sweet and refreshing. One to add to the summer BBQ list for sure. I forced Sam to drink a Fon Fon - which she kept saying with an oriental accent making it sound like a sexual invitation - and then we careered to the cinema to find out SATC isn't out until next wk and so we endured the new Indiana Jones. I was drunk and it was still crap. Why was Shiea LaBouff or whatever he is called (he sounds like a hairspray) dressed like Brando in 'The Wild One?' No idea. I also have no idea why Harrison made a come back for that rubbish - clearly it wasn't the plot that did it - as there isn't one. Oh and top marks to the props folk who made a crystal skull look like a bit of plastic with a few bits of clingfilm shoved inside.

I got up to find small whingey child refusing his breakfast - he has been whingey since 6pm on Fri evening and has been howling for hours for no apparent reason - even Toy Story won't shut him up and my nerves are FRAZZLED. Husband - who was meant to get up with him - gets up but promptly returns to bed as soon as I surface - thinking we are playing parental tag team. I watch desperate Housewives (as I now am one and am finding Bree oddly more normal as the days go by)get emotional and drink tea for comfort. Then the packing begins. Two boxes in and I am ready to murder my entire family and do time for it. A solitary prison cell would feel like bliss in comparison to whining child and moaning husband who is complaining BEFORE HE HAS EVEN PACKED ANYTHING. I am hoping for a slow jog through memory lane but as sproglet keeps putting his grubby hands into boxes and unpacking them - I end up sprinting through instead. I throw out all old music tapes (it hurt to throw away Tango in The Night which I played forever when I was 15) and VHS tapes. The home made ones I am not bothered about - but to throw out a VHS of Dirty Dancing felt criminal.

How have I accumulated so much crap? I harden my heart to a clay hippo my cousin gave me which he made when he was about 5. He is 24 now. The hippo has been in a cupboard for the past 7 years. It is time to bin it. I trawl through books and photos and find I have about 15 leads - and I have no idea what they are for, what they came with or why I own them. I pack them - just in case. Sproglet's soft baby books - what to do? Charity store. Have you ever given stuff to a charity store because it makes you feel slightly better about yourself than actually binning it? Oh yeah - I felt that alot today.

We order sushi for lunch - it comes an hour and a half later and is rubbish. I swallow cold Miso soup and hate husband for leaving dishes for almost 24 hours, bitching about how he wants to do nothing for the rest of today after filling half a box with restaurant magazines he never reads anyway and trying to wind me up with every syllable he utters. To make myself feel remotely better I regress 20 years or more and draw a penis on his foot with the marker pen and surprisingly I feel a bit better.

At 4pm I am spent. I lie down and sleep. Moving is hideous. I drift off thinking about soft furnishings I can't afford and worrying about how I will ever parallel park without asking a passer by to do it for me (which is my usual method of parallel parking).

At 6pm sproglet is still miserable but is at least eating pasta. We have run out of clean forks. Husband is reading newspapers on line and watching sport - clearly feeling he has completed all tasks for the day, when clearly he hasn't. I explode. I calm down. We have packed up most of the lounge, sproglet's room and the big cupboards in the hall. We are, at a guess, half way there. The thought of de- cluttering the attic freaks me out. What if there are mice up there? Eek! We make a deal not to do attic until morning of the move - less traumatic in daylight and when we are up against the clock. I bath sproglet and notice a spot on his tummy and a weird rash. Is it chickenpox? An allergy? Husband agrees to take him to the Dr tomorrow but announces that if he does he will veto the list of to-dos I have given him for before he goes to work. I have no idea why he thinks doing one 'chore' counterbalances doing any others. If this was the case after 7 years with him, I would now live in Hawaii with round the clock servants.

10pm: Sproglet now slumbers. Husband has done the dishes and gone to the cinema. I am still unwashed, stressed, with to-do lists coming out my ears and cold fried rice for dinner. No wonder this moving malarkey is up there with divorce (ironic that) and death on the stress Richter scale. Roll on June 6th and moving D day. Actually scrap that - roll on August - by then I will be settled and surrounded by soft furnishings - on credit. If only I could ebay husband and sproglet as a buy one get one free - then I would be stress free.