Manflesh and music

I wake on Sunday morning to the sound of pounding feet and look out of the window to see a stream of athletic-looking men running past the house, while bicycle-riding marshals urge them on to greater efforts. Several look slightly scared, which quite naturally makes me think of Bad Lindy, especially when one, slower than the rest, keeps looking behind him with an expression of dread, as though pursued by a giant pair of super-pouty lips.

Then the phone pings with Bad Lindy's first text of the day. "Waiting 4 text 2buzz and thunderbolt 2 strike! come the f*** on," - which I assume means that Darren hasn't called yet. Perhaps I should invite her over so she can dangle by her heels from the bedroom window and pout over the continuing parade of manflesh.

But no. In Francis' current gently depressed state, an early morning infusion of Bad Lindy - with or without lip gloss - might cause total breakdown. Even worse, it might not. Either way, I decide against it.

Instead I ring Cultured Mummy. She's the woman I know I could be if only I learned to swap Agatha Christie and Artic Monkeys for Coetzee and Bach's Goldberg Variations. She lives for the arts, has Radio 3 on the whole time in the background and is learning the bassoon. I never quite catch up with her, though it's not for want of trying.

"Did you find a recording by that Chinese pianist who played the Chopin so wonderfully at the proms last year?" I ask. "You know, Ling Ling?" "Lang Lang," she says, though kindly. "Wasn't Ling Ling a giant panda?"

But even Cultured Mummy is struggling. She's been in a 'Is that all there is' mood all week, she says. Everything seems black, pointless and impossible. We compare notes on moods. We're all approaching that difficult stage - too old for smear tests, too young for mammograms - while hormone levels surge and retreat like spring tides. The result is that we all live for the brief state of mid-cycle euphoria that lasts mere two or three days before misery sets in again.

"There's just no way out," says Cultured Mummy, gloomily. "A sex change might do it." I suggest. "Though Francis might feel a bit funny living with a man"

"No," says Cultured Mummy. "He married you for the person you are, not what you look like."

"I think two of us with five o'clock shadow might be pushing it," I say, "but frankly, if things go on like this, I'm prepared to risk it."

Maybe I should get Dave the decorator round for a quote, after all. At least he'd be able to offer some penetrating insights into my up and down feelings, possibly by scoring them into our carpets with his Stanley knife.