Alleluia. The worst time of the year has passed and it was bearable. The highlights: I didn’t make anyone cry. That’s it. The rest is a blur. So here I am back in snowy Brighton trying to get back to normal. I’ve made my annual pilgrimage to Freak Street and the Marie Curie Emporium of Clothes that People have Died in. This year I was proud to donate a bag of lavender fragranced nicky nacky noos and assorted bath bombs. Nice if you’re 90 but I’m not. Thanks anyway. I have two New Year’s Resolutions: a. at the risk of encouraging rats, I will feed the birds in my garden. b. I will expand my vegetable repertoire to incorporate Pak Choi, broccoli and butternut squash . c. I will stop obsessing about expanding my vegetable repertoire. d. I will take inspiration from Harold Pinter’s passing to finish my play.  That’s it. Over and out.

The annual Christmas office party has arrived. Woopi doo - I think I’ve wet myself. Why, on God’s earth do we put ourselves through this hell? Parties are for having fun with people you like (and might even fancy). Offices are for grinning and bearing with people you want to slap. Why put the two together? So, there I am on a Monday night in a cavernous working men’s club so hideous it makes Phoenix Nights look like Studio 54. Under the glare of a stuttering strip light, I sit in a circle with my co-workers, (many of whom I barely recognise under their slap and sequins) cradling a paper plate of lard while discussing facial hair and how best to get rid. Never, ever pluck seems to be the main take-out. I go to the bar under the steely glare of an old couple of men/women/freaks playing dominos. During my trifle when the conversation turns to bed sores, someone puts the juke box on and three ladies of a certain age attempt a menopausal shimmy by the dart board.  �

It’s very hard being a domestic goddess. I so sympathise with Nigella Lawson. Take last night. I came in from a drinks party, kicked off my sling backs, licked my lips, stuck out my tits and made a Christmas pudding. While it was steaming for 6 hours, I rustled up a spicy pork chop and ate it while lying down. This morning, I giggled and cleaned the kitchen floor, softly chiding myself for dropping sultanas (well, I was pissed). With peanut cracknel and pistachio fudge on my list of things to make, I’m not sure how long I can keep up this glamorous existence.Â

Yesterday, I gave blood for the first time since coming back from India. They were a bit worried about malaria but said they’d take it anyway and if it was infected they’d just chuck it. I’m presuming they’re going to tell me if this happens. Anyway, I went down to Jury’s Inn, where my donation was going to take place. What a hole. Orange carpet and very ugly furniture. Now usually, the people from the Blood Bank are very friendly and very attentive. Not yesterday. They were a bit casual, I thought, apart from the blood-testing man who smiled obsequiously and asked if I was menstruating. After he’d stabbed the end of my finger a few times and we’d watched my sample sink at a snail’s pace  to the bottom of the test tube (a good sign), a mannish looking nurse with greasy hair and Doc Martens took me to my bed. The beds were arranged in a haphazard circle like a Wild West wagon train under attack from the Apaches. To my left, a woman appeared to be doing it herself for want of a nurse and to my right, a man was having a bit of a turn. I dutifully filled my bag to the strains of Madonna’s ‘Papa don’t preach’ and then yet another nurse came to remove my donation and stick a plaster on my arm. ‘Leave it on for six hours’ she snarled and went off to sort out a collapsing privacy screen. I had my tea and Hobnob and left, tutting.Â

Jenny called. Did I want to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds? I said yes because life is too short to say no - and a rock concert on a Sunday night sounded wild and reckless. Of course, my only experience of Nick Cave is sharing a sales assistant with him at JD Sports last Christmas. Oh and once I sat next to him and his squeeze in Carluccios. I had thought about dropping my croissant and striking up a conversation about the slipperiness of the leatherette seating but knowing that celebrities can be prickly, I desisted. In fact, saying this puts me in mind of the time I went to see the lovely Jon Hegley and, spying him in the pub afterwards, was so beside myself that I ran over and blurted out ‘I love you Jon’. Yes, I know but I couldn’t think of anything else to say and hysteria got the better of me. Of course, he did what any other sane person would do when confronted with a nutter - ignored me. Anyway, back to Nick. A great concert. Very loud, lots of leg kicks, groin thrusts, playing instruments while lying on the ground and growling. Most enjoyable.

If stuck on a desert island or in ‘the Jungle’ (no I’m not watching it, bloody drivel) and given the choice of a luxury - cheese or chocolate, I would plump for cheese every time, preferably with a rustic cracker and a small slither of celery. I don’t understand why women go ga-ga over chocolate. The odd Twirl, maybe (and always dunked) but how some Cocoa Heads can ingest vast slabs of Cadbury (whatever happened to Cadbury’s?) beats me. Actually, I’ve just seen that ad, the one where the girl with the bug eyes and the Croydon face lift gets out a box of photos and gently nestling in there is a bar of Galaxy and she lies back on her Sunday supplement sofa and sucks (never chewing of course because people never actually masticate in adverts). I’m digressing. I’ve just spent a whole day eating chocolate - for a rebranding project. I tell you, forcing yourself to eat a nut truffle at 8.30am is not an easy job. �

Post nit armageddon, I still feel itchy. Maybe it’s rather like having your leg off and still having the urge to scratch your bunion. My wrigglers may have died a nasty death but it feels like they’re still there. Maybe they haven’t all died at all. Maybe some brute of a louse, some Bruce Willis type, managed to hang on, despite having his legs broken and his eyes put out and his skin  burnt off. Maybe he’s biding his time and is going to come back more vile, more angry and more voracious than ever before. Eeee ba gum mother, there’s nowt as scary as an angry louse. Just don’t get too close to me - he’s probably a champion hurdler too.

Obviously, I’m very excited about Obama Bambalatta getting in and hoping that he’s not going to get shot any day soon. However, on a more serious note, I have nits - AGAIN! For about a month I’ve been scratching. First of all, I thought it was psychosomatic; a mid-life crisis of the scalp. Then I thought it was my new plenitude/aptitude shampoo from the House of Tricolore or whatever those twattish salons are called. I called Dirk in for a thorough examination but he couldn’t find dandruff or anything to eat in there. And so the itch went on. Finally, yesterday morning, I had a good old brush and there it was - a wriggling thing in my bath tub. I called in the A team again - Dirk and a family tub of Agent Orange. Now, bearing in mind I can normally barely get a brush through my hair, let alone a nit comb, you can imagine how tortuous the procedure was. We were at it for a good two hours but you should have seen the carnage that emerged from my head. It wasn’t pretty. Watch this space…

I had a pasty man at the door today (that’s pale pasty not pastry pasty). This pasty man, think Uriah Heep with winkle pickers wanted me ….well actually, I’m not sure what he wanted. His opening gambit was ‘now don’t be scared’. Now, I don’t know about you, but if someone says ‘don’t be scared’, I’m immediately going to be scared but it was ok. He was one of those phone company sales people. Time wasters more like. In contrast, last week I had a man come to the door whose opening line was ‘do you want to do karate?’. ‘What now’, said I, thinking I quite fancied getting busy with a pile of bricks. But no, he wanted to enrol me in a class. Then today, the phone rang. There it was, the empty pause of the unsolicited sales call - and just as I was expecting Johnny Foreigner to say ‘hello miss, can I speak to the person in charge of your cellotape’, there was what sounded like a large fart. Blimey, this is all a bit Carry On thought I but no, I listened on, only to realise it a was in fact, the sound of a ship’s foghorn. I was being invited on a cruise. Me, on a cruise. I ask you. I get seasick on my garden seat so I don’t think I’ll be joining the Saga set just yet. I’m still thinking about karate though.

I have hair, big hair. My Grandmother used to call me the Wild Woman of Borneo because of its sheer size and rampant nature. Its ability to grow sideways as well as down accelerated in my teens during my David Cassidy period when long bunches were de rigeur. In retrospect, I suppose I should have used a brush occasionally but when I did I had a habit of snapping the handle (I did the same to tooth brushes - an over-developed bicep perhaps). I remember getting so tangled in the Forest of Dean when I was thirteen, that my dad had to sort me out with a razor blade. Recently, I’ve developed an itch. Dirk has had a good look. Picking me over like a desperate monkey at a Simian social, he’s examined me for foreign bodies. No nits, no mice, no nesting birds; not even a scabby scalp. I’m desperately hoping my affliction doesn’t travel south and invade my lady garden. �