all i want is a room somewhere

Dear Marianne,

Do you know what my current fantasy is? Yes you are close, I do fantasise about me and Daniel Craig romping around on the beach - I'm not sure what I'm wearing (but I look great)he has a nice tight pair of blue swimming trunks and there is a pistol somewhere...
But no, that's not my toppy most top fantasy, my toppy most top fantasy involves me, a toilet and nobody else! I am sitting alone in the house, I receive a call of nature, I go to the toilet and answer the call, and no bastard knocks on the door, shouts up the stairs, asks a question about homework or hurries me because we are going to be late.

It may seem a sad little fantasy, but it is not the only one. Apart from pooing in peace, I want to drink my tea hot, I want to complete conversations on the same day I begin them, I want to stop eating fish finger sandwiches, I want to listen to a song from opening chord to closing crescendo, I want to dance with my husband and not Barney the purple dinosaur, I want to read a book in less than a year, I want to write this blog without someone............Sorry about that, had to find Noddy's car.

As you will have worked out, it's not lots, but one big fantasy isn't it. I want my children to grow up and look after themselves really quickly (next Tuesday would be nice). But why tease myself with such thoughts, I need to enjoy what I have now and the day will come when I will be able to have a bath when I want and afterwards walk up and down the house naked; not necessary but possible you understand. The problem is that when my youngest are grown up I will be grown older and I won't be able to fulfill my fantasies. Pooing will be in to a bag, tea will be banned by my nurse, my brain will be too addled to hold a conversation about anything more than Deal or No Deal and etc.etc.

Anyway the two youngest, whose happy lives are messing with mine, were both off school today and so they accompanied us on another Magical Misery Tour of the South Coast's best kept lies. So we set off with hope in our hearts and "desperate suckers" tattooed on our foreheads to see some more houses in Hove by the Sea. Actually if you leaned to the right it was Hove, but if you stood up straight it was Port - fucking - slade. It was opposite the Lagoon though and "if you listen" said the Lettings Man "you can hear Heather and Paul arguing, tee hee". This is so sad, our Lettings Man must have spent four years trying to shift houses like this - tiny, ugly and with a view of the Power Station - using the fact that the McCartneys live desirably close. Then, for the past year he has been selling them because they are desirably close to two unhappy people, how uplifting for all of us.

The house we were in would have been perfect for us if we had been born blind midgets. "Snug and warm in the winter" said the Lettings Man as I tried and failed to swing a cat in the kitchen. Depressingly small I said to Craig as I went out on to the tiny patio to check that the sky hadn't fallen in. We left sharpish, even Mike and Anna unable to find an upside to the gloom. We then saw a massive (would be good for sharers) house on the seafront and then two fake Georgian houses in succession. To give you an idea of the utter rot that is available on the Lettings market, we are considering one of the Georgian fakes.

After chips in the blustery wind with some old ladies, bikers, and a bloke with tattooed tears from his left eye, we did some pigeon chasing(I know, should have been seagulls - we were confused too), I told Anna that they were on holiday from Trafalgar Square. Then it was home to the Wells, to a house which is looking larger and brighter by the day. Not to worry though, I still retain my fantasy of happy days in sunny Hove for all the family, young and old.

Rx