Community behaviour/private lessons

It's not until one of the hard-luck boys selling dusters door to door from a zip up bag backs slowly away from me down the path, not even attempting his sales pitch, that I realise my attitude of carefree insouciance may not be all it's cracked up to be. Even the spammers have given up. The normal flood of life-enhancing, special offer medicine slows to a trickle, then dries up completely. The makers clearly feel there's no drug on the market, legal or not, that can help me.

Procrastination isn't helping. I've put it off since Monday, but today I pluck up the courage to call the community behaviour clinic and make an appointment for Leo. I am so grateful that the receptionist doesn't hiss 'I know you're a rubbish mother,' down the line that I greet each of her perfectly normal comments as to parking arrangements and opening times with totally inappropriate levels of gratitude and, once, a braying whinny of thanks, which takes both of us by surprise. I can almost hear the click of the keyboard as underlinings and exclamation marks are added to the family background section of Leo's case notes.

We won't be seen for almost a month. My immediate reaction is to spend the next four weeks coaching Leo in how to be a normal child. But this reminds me of the parents who, according to our opthamologist, see short sight as a major character failing and refuse to let their children wear glasses, even when their vision is so poor that they struggle to pick out the cars when they're crossing the road.

I call Alice. The forecast for Bank Holiday weekend starts well but gets progressively worse. Unless we plan to set up the tents on Mount Ararat or equip them with oars and an outboard motor, we're going to get very wet. Plan B is a day trip to a point to point on Saturday. It will be expensive, but banning all fun will make Francis feel guilty and probably isn't the best way of keeping up his spirits, especially as he's just gone for the first of his four interviews. It therefore counts as an investment.

In the meantime, the school I teach at offers me more work, this time giving piano lessons to beginners. I know I should jump at it. My current job as a class music teacher is relatively anonymous - it's a rare parent who really wants to hear exactly how I approach the vexed question of unpitched versus pitched percussion. The thought of switching to one to one teaching and being interrogated by parents as to why little Isolde didn't get distinction in Grade 1 when everyone says how intensely musical she is, makes my stomach sink slowly to my knees, to be greeted cheerily by the pelvic floor muscles which arrived some time ago. Once my breasts join them, there'll be quite a party down there.

Then Francis calls on the way back from his interview. While I listen to him, Deborah, Beth and Leo, sensitive little souls that they are, respectively mop and mow, demand that I vet a pot of strawberry jam for salmonella, and kick a football repeatedly and loudly against the sitting room windows - from the inside.

"How did it go?" I ask, lightly, as if a new job were a mere bauble on the already shining crown of our existence. "Oh, it's not a place to work in," he replies airily, and somewhat confusingly. But it's not all bad news. The company hasn't the funds to hire him because it can't get any of the big supermarkets to stock its products. If things don't improve, the owner is thinking of selling up. But if Francis can talk to some of the buyers and help shift some stock, and he thinks he probably can, the owner has promised him a good slug of commission. It's not definite. There's nothing in writing. And promises can mean nothing. But if it were to work out, the benefits - morale boosting and financial, could be considerable. And perhaps, just perhaps, I could avoid taking on those extra piano lessons.

I look and feel more relaxed. At least, that's what I think, until Beth comes up as I'm ruminating in kitchen. "Mum, why are you baring your teeth like that?" she asks. My impromptu Dracula impersonation is bad enough - charades were never my thing - but what's worse is that I had no idea I was doing it. "So, now you're so stressed you do it without thinking?" says Beth. "Great."