I think maybe I hate weekends?

Or maybe I just hate logistics, I don't know anymore.

I did a slot on Woman’s Hour last week where I talked about the logistical nightmare of having a small child, and all the ways that it makes me a very selfish person. It was an interesting discussion (apart from the fact my laptop went down towards the end), where I explained that much of my life is spent explaining to people why I can’t do things.

From the comments under the Instagram post, I clearly didn’t do a great job explaining myself, because people largely think that either I’m a dick, or that my friends are dicks, and neither of those things are true. No-one is at fault here. I’m just talking about it because it’s hard, and it’s shit, and it’s Monday morning (the moment at which I can finally catch my breath) and once again I’ve finished a weekend feeling like a complete failure.

My daughter is a child of routine. We have a process, a timetable, a way of doing things. The benefit of this is that she’s very well adjusted despite having had an objectively fairly unconventional (read: shit) early life, with parents splitting up, being in and out of hospital, me being in and out of hospital, me going back to work basically as soon as she was born. She’s been to more TV studios than she has soft plays. The only way I could give her that very boring, safe childhood that kids really like is by having a solid, inflexible routine. Other relevant information for this manifesto about logistics are that - at time of writing - I can’t drive. The tube is basically impossible to use step free unless you’ve got someone to help you and (as if you don’t know this) I have sole custody of my 1.5 year old.

Weekends scare me, because they’re designed for people who have freedom or a domestic partner, and I have neither. My cure for this is to stuff them to the brim with activities, a plan which works really well some of the time and renders me exhausted and miserable the rest of it.

This weekend we had planned to go to the fireworks with my cousins. I really, really wanted to go. I bloody love fireworks. On Friday night, Margot, who is generally an amazing sleeper, had a nasty cough and is still furious with me for leaving her for two nights to go to Lisbon for work. She went on sleep strike, screamed like nothing I’d ever heard, and would only be placated by sitting on my lap, downstairs, during dinner with my girlfriends. She was up from 9pm until 11pm. Shockingly, the next morning she was really fucking tired and a bit horrible, she also had a rattling, rasping cough and a nose streaming highlighter ink. We went to Baby Ballet, as we do every weekend, which is a weird island of calm where she can behave as badly as she likes, alongside lots of other badly behaved toddlers, and it feels like I’m not failing for once.

Afterwards we go always go for coffee, this week at my sister’s beautiful, stunning, pristine flat (just down the road), where Margot tries to destroy everything. I leave feeling pleased that I’ve seen my family, and like I’ve had a lovely time, but guilty for the mess we’ve left behind. Margot screams getting into the pram (I feel guilty) and then falls asleep at totally the wrong time, in the pram, which she never usually does. I wake her up because if I don’t get her nap time later I won’t be able to work, and then feel guilty about that. I then cancel going to the fireworks because she’s too ill, and turn it into a quick visit for tea and chat. It’s lovely, we have a wonderful time, and they couldn’t have been nicer about the last minute change of plan. But once again, I feel incredibly guilty.

On Sunday I go over to see my childhood best friend who is about to have her first baby. She’s radiant and excited and a delight. I arrive 45 minutes late because I couldn’t get a black cab (it’s an 11 minute taxi, or a 55 minute journey on public transport). She’s incredibly understanding, I feel guilty. I then can’t get a taxi back, walk in the wrong direction and arrive back with an overtired, miserable toddler, having spent £65 on cabs. And guess what? I feel guilty! I think some of this is a generic parenting thing, but the single parent thing makes it even worse because there’s just no slack. No-one else can take her to ballet while I catch up with a friend over coffee.

My boyfriend comes over - a man who is the human embodiment of the word capable - and while I’m putting my daughter to bed he tidies the kitchen. I come downstairs, he pours me a glass of wine and I dramatically collapse on to him on the sofa in the manner of a Victorian actress. He strokes my hair while I complain and I wonder why he puts up with it. We have supper and watch telly and I apologise an annoying amount for being on bad form. He smirks at me and says, ‘Let me guess, are we feeling guilty for a change?’

By the end of the weekend I’m exhausted, and I’m cross with myself for all the people I’ve been lightly shit towards. I’m also worried that all my mates thing I’ve slagged them off on Woman’s Hour, and that people are going to stop inviting me to things because it sounds like I don’t want to go. I do want to go, I want to go more than anything else in the world. I just wish that life didn’t perpetually feel like that bit before you can check into your hotel room so you’ve got to carry a really heavy handbag around, killing time until you can put your stuff down. I love parenting - truly I do. But I’m so utterly tired of letting people down.

I was warned about mum guilt, but I don’t think this is that. I don’t feel guilty to my daughter because my every waking moment with her is in service of making her happy. I feel guilty to everyone else in my life who I perpetually fuck around in order to be a decent mother. I feel guilty to the friends who have to listen to me complain, to my boyfriend who has to talk me out of what he refers to as my ‘hurty head’, basically towards everyone who isn’t me or my child.

The only real lesson here is that I need to agree to fewer plans, pass my driving test so I don’t spend £100 on the only pram friendly transport in London (black cabs) and try to remember that pre baby, I was a good and reliable friend and and that one day I will be all of those things again. And that for now I’m quite a good laugh and I make a cracking pasta, so if you can get past my other (manifold) failings I’m not totally without compensations as a friend.