LIFE IN PIECES
Dawn O’Porter

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Dawn O’Porter 2020

Jacket design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Jacket photograph © Pako Mera/Alamy, Shutterstock.com (all other images)

Dawn O’Porter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008431877

Ebook Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780008431891

Version: 2020-09-02

Dedication

Dedicated to all my family and friends who I miss so much. Soon, we shall dance again.

What a shitshow of a year.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

PIECE ONE

Full-Time Stay-at-Home Mum

Parenting – WHAT is that smell?

PIECE TWO

My People

Friends Are for Life, Not Just for Lockdown

PIECE THREE

Food. All of the Food

No Such Thing as Calories in Lockdown

PIECE FOUR

Drink – Hiccup

When in Doubt … Drink

PIECE FIVE

Strong Eye till I Die

Lockdown, but make it Fashion

PIECE SIX

Raising Boys

The Perfect Men

PIECE SEVEN

Grief. It Hurts

When the World Stopped Turning

PIECE EIGHT

The High Life

Flying High in Lockdown

PIECE NINE

Meanwhile, in the Animal World

My Daughter and my First-Born Son: Lilu and Potato

PIECE TEN

Let’s Get Spiritual

Who even am I, Mystic Meg?

PIECE ELEVEN

And Sleep … Or Not

Earplugs, Eye Masks, Sleep Hats and Pills

PIECE TWELVE

A Moment’s Silence

Let’s Do Better

New Beginnings

Epilogue

Footnotes

A Note from Dawn

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

Don’t miss the ‘So Lucky’ podcast series

About the Author

Also by Dawn O’Porter

About the Publisher

Introduction

Dear 2020,

Earlier this year I got myself a paper diary. I wanted to go back to writing things down, rather than having everything on my phone. I found it today and got so sad when I saw how empty it was. Just months of nothing. No people, no meetings, no life. I sat and looked at it and got a little weepy. There was supposed to be all this other stuff, and it just wasn’t there. There was only emptiness.

As always, in January, I started the year with great intentions and felt good about what was heading my way. I wanted a better balance of deadlines and parenting. We’d just returned from Christmas in Ireland and, while the rest of the world dieted, I continued to eat like my life depended on it until my forty-first birthday on 23 January (feel free to write that down). It’s always my most greedy month, because as soon as New Year is done, I get into birthday mode. I celebrate a lot every year. Multiple dinners and events, I’ve always been the same. Delighted to reach another age, excited to be healthy and (generally) happy. My birthday passed and I remained committed to making small improvements to my life – none of which involved more exercise, less food or smaller measures of tequila, but I had deleted Instagram from my phone (lasted a week). I’d started to search for a therapist to iron out the many creases that form by the time you hit your forties.

All in all, I was ready to continue to ride through this decade with a margarita in one hand and novels spouting from the fingers of the other. As Chris and I rose from the swamp of having babies we wanted to party more, dance more, write more and fuck more. Everything was on track for life to become really fun. I’d waft drunkenly through my forties, hosting parties in our garden, wearing vibrant kaftans, living off tequila and weed gummies. That was how it was going to be. Until that one Saturday morning when I woke up and everything went dark.

My friend Caroline Flack took her own life on 15 February. She was my funniest friend. It broke me. I remain unfixed. One of the worst things I could imagine happening had happened. All plans stopped. My forties were off.

This isn’t a book about Caroline, what happened to her or why. But to understand my emotional experiences of lockdown, you need to know how it began. I was grieving, and in a pretty terrible way. I quit Twitter. I refused to read the tabloids, or even listen to negativity. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to isolate (careful what you wish for). I wanted my life to be smaller (not that small, thanks Covid-19). Something seismic had happened to me and a lot of the people I love. The world could never be the same again, and then suddenly, it wasn’t. During that weird space of time between losing Caroline and isolation kicking in, I felt like I was in a world full of people who would never understand me again. Most of my friends were in London, my husband, Chris, and I were in LA in our own sad and cloudy bubble. I felt a million miles from home, but was also terrified of returning to London for the emotional memories it would throw at me. Caroline is embedded into those streets, how could I ever walk down them without screaming?

As the world started to change it felt like it was all connected. When I flew back to Los Angeles from London after the funeral the borders were literally closing behind me. I was surrounded by people in masks. The air was full of anxiety, like a huge volcano had erupted and the lava was heading towards us, no one having any idea when it would stop. For the first few days after I got home, I found it a struggle to get through reading a story to my kids. A week later, my cat pissed all over the sofa and I couldn’t smell it. Food didn’t taste of anything. I put the rough throat down to having cried my way through the previous week, but as I waved coffee under my nose and got nothing, the news broke that losing your sense of smell was a symptom. Other friends that I had been with in London started to get ill. For them it was fever, flu, days and days in bed. By all accounts, I was lucky. We all wondered if it was coronavirus itself but didn’t really believe it. Still sort of joking about it, questioning all the ridiculous hype. We had no way to find out. There were no tests at that point. Only the realisation that the global pandemic was striking us all, and the people in charge hadn’t done anything to protect us. Oh God, I thought to myself as the schools closed and the restaurants locked their doors, we’re all totally fucked.

What you are about to read are highlights from the (almost) daily diary I wrote from the start of isolation until the summer of 2020 when we moved house. I went from being a working mother with high demands and deadlines to suddenly being a full-time stay-at-home mum. I tackled this with varying levels of success. I had to step up my mum game, protect my kids from my grief, be emotionally available for my husband and basically pull my shit together way sooner than I think was right. Be prepared for a lot of parenting, drinking, edibles, shitting, pissing (the kids and the cat, not me), crying and analysing. But amid the stresses, there was a lot of good too. When life was stripped right back to the bones, I realised how strong my skeleton was. I have changed a lot since 15 February, and I’m happy to share the process and thoughts that go with it.

2020 is the year that changed us all, and maybe that is OK.

Love Dawn x

PIECE ONE

18 March

Isolation Update – Totally holding it together

Well there goes another day of total bollocks. Look, I plan to get my shit together and storm through this with grace, but I need a week of being an asshole first. They are saying the schools will be closed here until September? Whoa. I presume by then we will have tests, so we can at least share the kids with other ‘negative’ families, and get them some playdates going? We’re not dealing with the bubonic plague here. I get that we need to stop it spreading, but it can’t fill us all with so much fear that we never leave the house again … can it? I just want to get these two weeks of isolation over, so I can drop my kids off at their friends’ houses occasionally – that would make all the difference. I’m not sure what the deal with having any childcare is, because how can I control what that person does with their time while they are not with us? Kid share sounds more likely. With families who you know are doing everything right.

MY GOD THIS IS MENTAL.

It’s blowing my mind to think that just last week I was with a friend in London. We said goodbye to my sweet Caroline and among the sadness of it all, I was making jokes about coronavirus, saying how I wouldn’t have risked getting it for anyone else. Not so funny now.

I woke up with a cold and have felt low energy and a bit glum all day. Although I did do an hour of ‘school’ with my son Art. This involved teaching him how to write the letter N, and finding things around the house, and in his books, beginning with N. We both got bored, but he can now spell ‘Nope’, so it wasn’t an entire waste of time.

I forgot to give the kids lunch then, when I remembered, they ate it like it was their first meal in years.

I’m eating too many crisps. Today I had them with a mayonnaise-based dip. I plan to do that most days. If I’m going down, I want to do it slathered in mayonnaise, eating Kettle Chips. Is that too much to bloody ask?

Talking of going down, I have had Dido’s ‘White Flag’ stuck in my head for days. Nice and chirpy.

I need to exercise, but I genuinely don’t feel amazing so maybe I just let this thing pass first. I only wish I knew if I had the bloody virus. I can’t get my head around that I may never know. This is America. THIS is madness. You can spit into a tube and find out if your Great-Great-Great-Great Uncle Wally had a Spanish uncle, but you can’t find out if you have flu? Well done, Trump. Nailing it.

At least the weather is improving. We did some bee-saving today because there are hundreds of docile ones on the lawn. I accidentally drowned one in the sugary water and felt like total shit about myself all day. Art put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘It’s OK, Mummy, he didn’t look like he was gonna make it.’ And so I cried.

Why have I turned into a pathetic heap of blubbing nonsense?

I do think, as this goes on, things will fall into place. I have romantic ideas for isolated communes where we all get high while the kids play games like tiddlywinks and snap. I have some good kaftans that would be perfect for such a scenario.

There are lots of people sending around ideas and activities to do with the kids. I need to get on it, rather than just resent the fact that to do any of those things involves me doing them too. But the reality is, if we fill three hours a day with solid activities, then the rest can be more fluid … free play, food, park, TV. So, I will do better. I just want to sit and read, or start my new novel, but these days aren’t really working out that way. I guess what I’m most nervous of is that this school closure will become all about the kids. (Obviously, it is about the kids, but bear with me.) We must keep them motivated, fit, stimulated, but that leaves no time for us to work, does it? And if we can’t work, then everything is a nightmare. So, hopefully schools are going to take that into account while they experiment with all this remote learning, and accept that the kids will get a bit less attention than they would at school.

WHAT IS HAPPENING.

In terms of activities, the school suggested that we cut out little leaves from paper and then the kids come up with things they are grateful for. (All Valentine, my two-year-old, ever says is ‘whales’. All Art, age five, ever says is ‘poo’.) You write what they say on them, then hook them onto twigs and put them in a vase. A little gratefulness tree. Quite cute. I think I can manage that. I’m grateful for weed gummies. Stick that on a leaf and smoke it.

My dog Potato is having the best week of his life because we are all home. Honestly, I wish I was a dog. No, I don’t, I wish I was a fish, because you can’t get Covid-19 in the ocean. Can you? Oh God, what if it’s in the water?

I did nail our Paddy’s night dinner last night though. Corned beef and cabbage, with mashed potato and sweetcorn. It was yum. I think that tonight I’ll make something extra special like … hmmm … hot dogs. Done.

Of course, this isn’t all awful. I have two amazing boys who make me laugh all the time and happily occupy themselves when I ask them to. They are healthy, gorgeous and kind. It could be worse. There could be three of them.

OK, until tomorrow …

Love Dawn x

19 March

Isolation Update – The head in the cupboard

Today was considerably better and I attribute this to two factors:

1 I didn’t bother getting my kids dressed, to avoid excess laundry.

2 I abandoned all efforts to educate them.

Turns out, if you totally give up on even attempting to nourish children intellectually, everyone is happier. What a revelation to come out of this strange and total shit-show of a time.

So … the day started well. I woke up at six something, but the kids didn’t wake until seven thirty. They’re going to bed late, and for this period that works fine by me; at that time in the morning, to sit and have a coffee before it all kicks off is nice. My favourite part of the day is by far the mornings. Everyone is generally quite happy to see each other after social distancing in our bedrooms throughout the night. Chris came up with the genius idea of putting a few chocolate cereal pieces into their regular healthy cereal, which means breakfast time is a dream. We don’t give our kids much sugar because Art acts like me in the early 2000s in dingy Liverpool clubs at just the sniff of anything refined, so when they get any, they go into a trance.

I did playdough with the kids for nearly an hour. As expected, they squashed all the new playdough together until it turned brown and then threw it around the room yelling, ‘I’m throwing poo-poo at you.’ At first I shouted at them to stop, but soon realised, as I scraped it out of my hair, that I will never win. So instead I asked Alexa to play a ‘Farty Party’, and I pretended to do playdough poos all over the living room. This is where I am at.

NEXT, I ordered the kids a really cheap tent, which I popped up in their bedroom. They thought it was the greatest thing ever to happen for about forty-five minutes. While they were in it, I did a face mask, and then applied full make-up. There is so little I can control right now, but my eye make-up is something that no one can take away from me. I also wore double denim and didn’t take my slippers off all day. If this is still going on when the weather cheers up, I’ll bang out some kaftan action. I really feel that kaftans should be the traditional dress of isolation.

I gave Chris the morning off kids to get some work done, and right now Valentine is supposed to be napping. But he isn’t. He is rubbing banana onto my bed sheets while I say, repeatedly, ‘Mummy needs FIVE MINUTES.’ He is not giving me those five minutes.

I’m defrosting some ready-made pesto chicken thing for dinner, and I had two packets of crisps with my lunch. It’s 3 p.m. and Chris just walked in and gave me a margarita. What a guy!

Things I want to get better at during this time:

1 Calling family

2 Calling friends

3 Making podcasts

4 Bonding with my children (I realise that should probably have gone higher up the list)

5 Eating vegetables

6 Exercising

7 Not having meltdowns

But one day at a time.

Talking of days, what day even is it? I literally have no idea. Not that it matters.

OK, I’m going to go and turn the TV up for ten minutes, so that my kids can’t hear me scream into a pillow. I hope your days went OK?

WHAT IS HAPPENING.

Love Dawn x

20 March

Isolation Update – My kid is green

OK, well today was marginally better. I put this down to me completely abandoning any sense of self and committing fully to the children’s happiness and housework. Turns out, when not trying to do anything else, one can mother better.

This simply cannot go on.

I need to continue to work, when I can. But for today, I didn’t even try, and we all got through it.

We started the day with some rock painting. You get paint, you collect rocks, and then you paint them. You let the paint dry, stick some googly eyes onto the rocks and then do not wash either child until bedtime, no matter what colour 90 per cent of their faces are. (Art – green, Valentine – red and black).

Donald Trump, our orange president, did a briefing this morning. LA is on almost a complete lockdown now. No shops, bars, bloody anything remain open. It’s a ghost town. The weird thing is, I have become totally used to this and can’t remember a time when I walked freely down a street, sneezing willy-nilly, instead of bathing in anti-bac every time the postman delivers a package. This is our new normal, for however long it lasts. Listening to Trump on the radio has never been pleasant, but now it’s even worse, as every time he is telling us that more of America is closing down. People are losing their jobs by the second. It’s the most devastating thing to hear. All we can hope is that we are wrong and, in a week or two, everything will be OK. Let’s hold onto that thought for as long as we can. Because, as mad as the world is, and things keep getting worse, things could also be mad enough that they just get better and all of this madness will end.

I hope you’re all OK.

Did I tell you that Chris panic-bought 200 worms? Well, give a two-year-old 200 worms and you have around twenty minutes of being able to think about something else. This activity was not relaxing. I rescued at least 40 worms from decapitation (got them all, no worms were harmed) and spent a very long time scraping soil off my carpet. Valentine named all the worms ‘Mr Worm’, and then was entirely over it by snack time. The worms are now in a large pot with moist soil, and I apparently have 200 more pets than I did yesterday. Great.

I ate crisps for lunch. With a side of cheese. I did not exercise.

I am making Jamie Oliver’s chicken and mushroom pie for dinner. I am also digging out all of my trousers that have elastic waistbands because I wore jeans today and they hurt me.

I’m committed now to hunkering down. I’ve got lots of food. I can cook and deliver to anyone I know who gets stuck, and we could survive for a month. The reality of being in LA at the moment is that the last things open are the food shops. It’s likely they will soon be closed too. Which is WILD.

Art (the five-year-old) misses his friends and has so much energy he can’t burn off. I feel bad, but there isn’t much we can do about it. I’m just trying to do as many activities as possible, and not lose my shit when he loses his.

Valentine, on the other hand, thinks it’s awesome. We are potty-training him now – we thought we might as well – so the house is covered in his piss, as well as the cat’s. By the time this is over it will probably be covered in mine too, to be honest.

OK, I’d better go. The kids are clawing at me again, and I want to cook the pie.

Sending love to you and yours, I really hope you’re all OK,

Love Dawn x

Parenting – WHAT is that smell?

So I’ve been thinking about parenting a LOT over these past weeks, I mean, obviously, it’s all I’ve been doing. It’s just Chris and me doing 100 per cent of everything with the kids, the dog and the cat – and we are shocked at the constant stream of piss or shit coming out of at least one of them at any given time. I mean, what the HELL is happening? It’s almost tempting to not feed anyone for an entire day, just to get a break from it.

I never thought I’d be married with two kids, because I was happily on track to be a single cat lady who wrote books in bed. There is rarely a day that goes by that I am not stunned by the life I appear to be living, but the good news is, I like it very much and find being a mother and a wife a largely riveting experience. Well, that is how I felt before the schools shut and I found myself a full-time stay-at-home mum without much warning.

It’s important that I say at this point how much respect I have for full-time stay-at-home mums. One side effect of feminism that really breaks my heart, is how apologetic a lot of women feel they need to be for being just that. It is, quite simply, one of the hardest, most selfless jobs you can do. There is no ‘clock-in at nine, leave at five’. It’s an all-in, 24/7, every fucking day, SORRY, WHAT IS MY NAME AGAIN kind of job, and if there is any part of you that feels judgement towards a woman who is doing it, abandon those thoughts. Full-time mothers (parents, to be fair to the men who do it, of whom there are plenty) work harder than the rest of us. The point of feminism is to make sure that the women who don’t want to do it have an equal amount of opportunity as the men who don’t. It isn’t there to make stay-at-home mothers feel less than – and if you ever witness that, call it out.

I must add that being a working parent is no joke either. There are rarely breaks. You get home from work after a long day and you begin the ‘second shift’ of giving the kids dinner and putting them to bed. And when you have small children, there is no such thing as a relaxing weekend.

Before lockdown I had pretty much been on a work deadline for the previous eighteen months. I’d get to my desk at 9 a.m. and not leave until 4.45 to collect the kids (on my days), working much later on the days it wasn’t my turn. I’d be so caught up in it as my deadline approached that I’d barely look up to have a conversation. I’d go for turbo wees and eat lunch over my keyboard, to the point all the keys got stuck and I had to get another one. Two days a week Valentine would be downstairs in the day care that my workspace provided. I’d see him doing the music class on Wednesdays and feel awful that I wasn’t down there with him like the other mums, but my workload wouldn’t always allow it.

I’d dream of my writing being done, so I could take a few months off and just be at home with the kids. I craved it. Hoping that just one of my books would smash it out of the park, and that I’d make enough money to only have to write one a year and nothing else. Then I’d spend the rest of the time in a dreamy, homely bubble. Cooking amazing things and picking the kids up early. The reality was, I was in no position to take a few months off. If I stop working, I stop being paid, and it’s taken years and years of writing at this level to get paycheques that actually contribute to our family. So, this was to be my pattern: bursts of intensity with bursts of less intensity. I have friends (men and women) who do jobs where it’s high intensity all the time. We’d all talk about the dream of sabbaticals and breaks longer than a few weeks. We wanted month upon month of nothing but blissful family life.

Careful what you wish for. Hello, Mr Pandemic. (It’s definitely a man.)

Why were there suddenly so many hours in a day? Why do kids aged two and five show such enthusiasm for things they are bored of five minutes later? Why does fifteen minutes feel like two hours? Why is it that everything fun makes loads of mess that is no fun to tidy up? When lockdown began, we didn’t want Art to be sad and miss his friends, so we became his parents, teachers and best friends all in one. By the Friday of that first week, I had learned that the level of activity we were engaging in was completely unsustainable. I was not that woman, and as much as it pained me to admit it, I was not that mother.

It’s a harsh experience to be confronted with the kind of mother you are. Mainly, perhaps, because you are labelling yourself. But we do that, women, don’t we? We feel we have to fit into categories. The most prevalent categories that mothers are put into are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. ‘She’s such a good mum.’ Don’t tell me you haven’t said it about your friends. So, let’s work out which one I am, because on paper I kind of look OK. It’s just a shame I don’t exist only ‘on paper’.

Reasons I am a great mother:

1 I am painstakingly dedicated to my kids’ happiness.

2 I take their health very seriously and work hard on their food and nutrition.

3 I engage in hours of conversation, despite having relatively low interest, if any, in what they are talking about.

4 I have happily sacrificed my afternoon nap since having them.

5 I love them even more when they’re ill and find great pleasure in nursing them back to health.

6 I have carved out a career that means I have a 98 per cent chance of being there for them if they need me.

7 I am utterly obsessed with them and think they are the two greatest humans who ever walked the earth.

Reasons I am a bad mother:

1 I am rubbish at playing.

2 When my kids do an impression of me, they shout, ‘BE CAREFUL OF MY WINE.’

3 I fantasise about living in a cute two-bed flat in London with a couple of cats way more than I should.

Now, I realise that my ‘bad mother’ list is a lot shorter. But in the circumstances of lockdown, I realised that being a good player, in particular, is crucial. I know it’s silly to buy into the perfect ‘smug mum’ scene on Instagram, but all I’d see were countless images of mums playing with their kids. Wild and adventurous games that they had invented, dens so extravagant a family of four could live in them, kids so happy they never wanted to see their friends again. And then there was me, out of ideas by Day 4, feeling like I didn’t have the energy to keep two boys entertained, watching how my husband could play and play and play when all I ever seemed to say was ‘in a minute’, ‘when I’ve done this …’, ‘after my wine is gone.’ I do really try, but I get so tired, and that makes me feel so guilty that I internalise it and end up getting all disappointed in myself, so I have to go off and have a big think about life in a cupboard.

I spend a lot of time in cupboards.

I am unnecessarily defensive about childcare. This is because I live in Hollywood and am married to an actor. The media has painted a certain picture of parenting when you are in that situation. Multiple nannies, PAs and housekeepers. In many cases, this is entirely accurate. But not in ours. Before I start, I shall acknowledge the help that we have had.

When Art was five months old, we found Mary. Mary Moo, as I called her, was like an angel from above. A few years younger than me, a glorious mix of Ethiopian and Canadian, loving, fun, a great cook, a great teacher and an absolute breeze to have around. Mary worked full-time for us (average day: nine to five, Monday to Friday). It was like I had a sister-wife; we were both passionate about food and books and all sorts of other lovely things. She was brilliant in a crisis; if she was babysitting at night and one of the kids was sick in their beds, by the time Chris and I got home everything would be washed and the child would be wrapped up on the sofa with a bowl on their lap, somehow smiling, not even asking for us, because Mary was as good as it gets.

When Art was around eighteen months, he started going to a little day care close to our house, and Mary went to work for a friend of mine. A few years later, when I’d had Valentine, she came back to us and we did almost the same thing all over again. Although Valentine, being the second child, started at day care a little earlier. Because, ya know, second child vibes.

Last year Mary moved back to Canada to have a baby of her own. She’d been working for another family here for a year previous to that, and picking our kids up from school on Tuesdays and Thursdays then working through so Chris and I could go out for dinner. But she was still in our lives and the kids adored her so much, as did we. Finding someone to replace Mary has been hard, and I do wonder if it could ever feel the same. Luckily (when the bloody schools are open) we don’t need a full-time person, so it’s all about finding the perfect regular babysitters now (of which we’ve always had some lovely ones). I’m so grateful that we had that experience with her though; those baby years are hard work, especially when both parents are working and you don’t have any family close by. To have someone you know your kids love in that way, makes everything a lot easier. And the way she loved them, urgh, it kills me that she left. There have also, of course, been other sitters and part-time help over the years, many of whom we love deeply. But Mary Moo, she was our Number One.

When I was pregnant with Art, I asked a friend here what advice she had for me, and her advice was ‘hire a night nurse’. Don’t get me wrong, I think night nurses sound amazing, but this made me cross. I wanted advice about how to hold my baby, feed my baby, get my baby to sleep. Not ‘get staff’. It’s not the advice I think people should give to expectant mothers. It doesn’t fill anyone with confidence, it doesn’t make them think they can do it. I tell any friends who are having babies, if they ask, to see how it goes, and then get all the help they feel they need when they need it. I give the same advice for the birth. See how it goes and get the epidural if you need it. I find all of this planning for worst-case scenarios really depressing. There is so much fear instilled into people about having kids. Birth will tear you apart and you’ll never sleep again. It’s true, both of those things might happen, and it could be really terrible and often is. But also, it might not be. Birth might be the best thing you ever did, you might even be able to jump on a trampoline afterwards (I can’t, but you might). And your baby might be a sleepy one, and you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about. Hope for the best and do what you need to do when and if you need it. That’s my advice, not that anyone asked.

Personally, when I have too much childcare, I start to feel like the nanny when it’s my turn to take care of them. It’s happened a few times when I’ve been on a really intense deadline and Mary and Chris have been doing the lion’s share. By the time Saturday morning comes, I’m all out of kilter with them and it’s really stressful. I think a lot of parents who work long hours would probably say the same thing. The less time you spend with your kids, the harder it can be to spend time with them. However, we both have to work, and that is exactly the shitty ‘guilt’ feeling that people talk about. I swore I’d never feel it when I got pregnant, but I do, I feel it all the time. When we got childcare, I felt guilty that they were in the house with her, while I sat in the office doing my job. IT IS SO STUPID. And it goes on … If for any reason it hasn’t been me who baths them and puts them to bed for say, three nights in a row, I feel awful. If I am not the one organising their meals, I feel guilty. If I have a busy work week and then there is something happening at the weekend which means I needed more help, I feel mean. I know Chris goes through exactly the same thing. His job can often take him away from home for long periods of time, him hopping back at the weekends. He parents harder than ever while he is home to make up for being away, but of course he feels guilty that he is away at all. But hard work affords us a life we all love. I know the kids won’t remember the times he is away, or the nights I have to work late, and they’ll just have the happiest memories of when we are at home. But still, guilty guilty guilty, all the bloody time.

People say parenting is hard and there are so many reasons why that is. The literal, physical effort that it takes to look after small children. The emotional effort of taking care of older ones. The lack of sleep. The financial pressure. The need to reach a compromise with your parenting partner, if there is one. The working, the socialising that you deserve but don’t get to do. Balancing it all can feel impossible at times. Guilt is just a part of it. Whether it’s about the kids, your relationship, or your friends that you never see and can’t be there for. Guilt. All the time. I’ve got so used to it being a part of my day. At some point, before I go to sleep, I will inevitably feel like total shit about something.

That was until lockdown happened. I don’t think I’ll feel guilty about going to work ever again. Also, I want childcare every weekend until they’re eighteen. And I want a night nurse – not for the kids, but for me. Because you know what, fuck it.

Things I know now that I didn’t know before lockdown:

1 Toddlers are not to be left alone with worms.

2 Hiding in cupboards is key.

3 Lego is HARD.

PIECE TWO

24 March

Isolation Update – ‘There has been a terrible problem’

I am stunned to be sharing this information with you all, but I think I enjoyed today. What is most peculiar is that I didn’t start drinking until 4 p.m. That means there were nine hours of daytime that I genuinely didn’t hate. This could be because of three things:

1 I was still drunk from yesterday.

2 I have totally given up on myself.

3 My friends are the best.

The kids slept until 7 a.m., which felt like a holiday. Chris and I take it in turns to get up and do breakfast. This morning he said, ‘Whose turn is it?’ I said, ‘Yours,’ and he went into the kitchen muttering about waffles. It took me a moment to remember that he had made the kids waffles for breakfast yesterday, and it was actually my morning. I sent him back to bed with a coffee, and popped some bread in the toaster. I’d slept well, so was more than happy to get up. Aren’t I being lovely and affable so far?

In that short moment where I lay in bed, thinking I had the morning off, the dull ache of relentlessness consumed me. Here we go again, another day of exactly the same thing. More drawing, more playdough, more throwing their squidgy fake-poo toy at the wall and howling with laughter as it falls to the ground. More time on my hands and knees scraping food off the floor. More time in front of a mirror scraping food out of my hair. As I took those thoughts in, I could have cried. But I didn’t cry. I reminded myself that this might be my only chance to spend this much time with my kids, without work pulling me away. To enjoy it. To take it on. Embrace it. And so, I did. I went into the kitchen with a smile on my face, and I managed to maintain it for most of the day.

As always, while I saw to the kids, I was also on WhatsApp. Because of the time difference with the UK, I usually wake up to a flurry of messages. This morning, a friend in London asked me how I was feeling about Caroline, she was checking in. I told her the truth: it still hurts like hell, but I am powering on because I have no choice. I mean, I do have a choice – I could totally fall apart. But I have a family to hold together, so I can’t do that. Sometimes it feels like my WhatsApp groups are the places where I can sink my true feelings. If I feel tears coming, I message a friend, maybe even a few at once, and say, ‘I’m having a bad moment. I can’t do this. I miss her too much.’ And almost immediately I am met with support. Words that pull me together. Or sometimes their own sadness is reflected back, which reminds me I am not alone in mine. I think one reason I have never really committed to therapy is because I don’t see what more I could get out of it than what I get from my girlfriends. Whenever there’s a heavy hand pressing down on one of my shoulders, I feel it lift a little the moment one of my friends gets in touch to ask me if I am OK.

Anyway, on to the rest of the day (what day even is it?). I did twenty minutes on the Peloton. I think that is my limit on the amount of time I can work out before I get really cross and hate everyone. It’s as if that twenty minutes releases just the right amount of pheromones, or whatever the fuck exercise releases, and it suits me just fine. If I try to do more than that, I just won’t keep it up. I promised myself that I would do twenty minutes every morning while this isolation continues.

We all know that this will never happen.

Admittedly, I totally forgot to educate my kids today. Again. We are supposed to log in and watch all the videos the school has made. Although I appreciate the effort, I do think these first few weeks have to be about adjustment. For most of you in the UK, today was your first day of ‘Remote Learning’. It’s full-on, isn’t it? Especially if you have multiple kids. That’s where I was at last week, and on Tuesday I had a massive meltdown and felt really scared of it all. It seemed so much, so soon. School’s cancelled and BAM, we’re supposed to follow a syllabus. I am lucky that Art is only five and the stuff they are asking us to do is minimal. They don’t even learn to read here at five. Which is why I am being quite chilled about it. I am not deliberately trying to hold my kid back. Promise.

The WhatsApp group for Art’s class is alive with swearing. Messages like ‘NO NO NO’ in capitals. ‘FUCK THIS’ or ‘THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE’. ‘My kid hates this’ and ‘I need my computer back’ are on a loop. We constantly question how long this will last. Most of us need to work but we’re having to guide our kids through tasks set by the school. No one can quite believe what we are being asked to do. Remote learning with a five-year-old? That’s as bad as it gets.

The mum group is comforting though, and they’re a fun bunch. It’s nice to know Art isn’t the only one in his class with a parent who is tearing their hair out.

I downloaded Demi Moore’s autobiography, which I listened to in the kitchen while making one of the 638,909 meals I had to make today. It’s good, I recommend it. She’s had a mad old life, and she gets all juicy about her marriages, which is fun.

I hate baking, but I know kids love it. I defrosted some pastry this morning, and the kids rolled it out and we cut it into shapes. Valentine ate raw egg then spat it all over the pastry, then Art and I sprinkled cheese on top. I put them in the oven and they were yummy. Little cheesy parcels. We had them with crisps, so probably have scurvy now, but according to the radio we are all GOING TO DIE anyway, so what does it matter?

Valentine took all his clothes off and pissed in the tent. A horse-like piss, that created a shallow pool that took up the entire tent. He thinks potty training is about finding the most inventive place to take a slash. Anywhere but the goddam toilet, apparently. I put on a really bossy voice and said, ‘Do you want me to put a nappy on you, like a baby?’

He just said yes.

After that he disappeared outside and came back a while later holding a cup. ‘Mummy, there has been a terrible problem.’ (He is two.) He handed me the cup.

There were three dead bees in it.

‘Valentine, did you hurt the bees?’ I asked.

‘Or they would sting me,’ was all he said. I pushed him to add a few words to the beginning of that sentence, but no, ‘Or they would sting me’ was all I got.

I may never know what happened to those poor bees. Oh dear.

It was 8.30 by the time I eventually got them both into bed. It was what I think you call in parenting ‘a total shitshow’. But they are down. Anyway, Chris is doing a Zoom poker night, and I just did a ‘House Party’ with some mums from Art’s school class. I can be terrible at things like this. Zoom chats freak me out a bit, especially with people I don’t know very well. I’d said I couldn’t do it at first, then last minute I jumped on and I’m so glad I did. It’s good to connect with people who understand what you’re going through. I still can’t believe I am a mum of two with other mum friends. Life is so surreal. Luckily, I found cool ones.

Night-night or morning, depending on where you are!

Love Dawn x

26 March

Isolation Update – Don’t fuck with eggs

Quick question before we crack on: how many more memes do I have to pretend to find funny before this crisis ends? Also, a friend of mine just told me she is dating a ‘memer’. THAT is a person who makes memes for a living. People get paid to meme? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

I actually love chatting to my single friends about their bonkers dating lives. Dating a memer in isolation? Of course, I made lots of jokes about them communicating via the medium of meme and asked if he continually quoted his own memes during lovemaking. She found it funny, because she is my friend. And she knows if she says ridiculous things like ‘I am dating a memer’ to someone like me, there will be consequences.

I woke up at 7.30, just before everyone else. I came into the kitchen and boiled the kettle, excited for a moment’s peace. Then I wandered into the living room to find a pile of cat sick next to the sofa. Behind it, some shit. Seconds later, Valentine flew in lathered in snot. Right after that, Art called me because he’d wet the bed. Before the kettle was even boiled, I had dealt with multiple urine, shit, snot or vomit incidents. This is not what I signed up for when I married a movie star. I wonder how different it would have been if I’d married a memer instead.

Over breakfast (cereal and mango) the kids had a fight with their spoons. It started off fun, but soon turned violent. I told them they mustn’t fight, then they threw their spoons across the room and, for a moment there, I considered getting Lilu’s sick out of the bin, rubbing their spoons in it, then giving them back to them. (Lilu is the mad Siamese cat who has lived with me for sixteen years – more on her later.) I managed to restrain myself. But I did tell them that if they did it again, I would give them both chickenpox. That shut them up. (They are immunised, I’m not THAT cruel. Also I said it in a jokey voice.) OK, OK, I feel bad.

When I had fed them, and released them from the table, I fried a couple more eggs, one for Chris and one for me. Valentine came over and demanded to eat some of mine. I gave it to him, because I felt guilty about the chickenpox. He ate it, then spat it out into my hand.

Who the actual hell are these people?

I FaceTimed my dad, which was lovely. I usually go weeks without speaking to him. It’s a terrible habit I have fallen into, and one that I always want to correct. This week, we have spoken every day. I really do believe that this will bring the love out in a lot of people. I realise the opposite is also true, but it’s making me want to connect more with the people I love. I am trying hard to do that.

I wore bunchies in my hair today, adding an element of cuteness to my ageing look. I have enjoyed it immensely and will be experimenting with new hairstyles as the days plod on. I was due a haircut before all this happened and am weeks away from no longer having a bob. Isn’t that just so exciting for us all? I’ll keep you posted every step of the way.

I did a strong eye, despite the order not to leave the house. I also wore a top with sparkles on it. No one can tell me I don’t bring the party to isolation.

By 2.22 in the afternoon I was longing for a drink but was determined to get to at least 3 p.m. But then my sister FaceTimed me from the UK; she was really drunk and talking absolute nonsense about God knows what. She was quite shouty, and when I put her on the phone to Art she sounded like a mad aunty in a comedy movie, so I told Art to go play while I listened to her rabbit on about some planting she’d done that day. What was nice about her call was that it made my need to drink feel more appropriate. Sometimes the eight-hour time difference can be very useful.

School recommended a game where you put an egg in a zip-lock bag, fill the bag with whatever you can find, then drop the bag and see if you’ve managed to protect the egg from smashing. I was like: EGGS ARE LIKE SACRED CRYSTALS RIGHT NOW, WHY THE HELL WOULD I RISK SMASHING ONE?

We didn’t do the experiment. Which makes this Day 12 of not educating my child. He’s FINE.

There was plenty more pant-pissing throughout the day, so I ended up taking off Valentine’s trousers altogether. He thought this was brilliant and spent most of the afternoon on all fours with his ass in the air. I always tell my kids to put their bums away, not encouraging it. Otherwise all we would talk about would be bums and poo. But occasionally, when they least expect it, I pull a mooner just so they think I’m the coolest mum ever. Works a treat. Gets me loads of hugs.

My friend Rebecca made me a loaf of sourdough and dropped it round. The bread was UNREAL. Like, proper fluffy English bread, rather than the weird, sweet, rubbery stuff you get here. She stood outside with a mask on and we chatted, and it was amazing. But I wanted more. I miss my friends. I want to hug them. It really devastates me to stand a few feet away from someone I love, not being able to touch them, and having to wear a mask. It’s so weird. Our house has always been full of friends. Most Sundays since we have lived in this house we’ve had people over. It’s the party house. Now it’s the farty house.

I miss drinking with grown-ups. Kids are way more judgey.

OK, that’s it from me for tonight,

Love Dawn x

Friends Are for Life, Not Just for Lockdown

In ‘normal’ times, I can take friendship a little for granted. I’m rubbish at calling people back, I don’t arrange nearly enough dinners. I like to entertain at home so invite everyone round, but I miss out on seeing the people who can’t make it. When isolation is over, I want to do better. Weekly dinners with my girls, more one-on-ones and lunches and brunches. Because this time of chaos has shown me just how vital my female friendships truly are. Multiple WhatsApp groups have become daily therapy sessions where we can offload about parenting, marriage and work woes; all delivered with unrelenting honesty and received with judgement-free eyes and thumbs.

These are the major WhatsApp groups in my life:

Group One

LA DICKHEADS – this is made up of my sister Jane and best mate Lou. It makes me happier than anything else that I have them both in the same virtual place and that they get on so well. Jane and Louise being friends is magic. We each have two boys. Lou is in Australia, Jane Bristol, me LA. The chat is funny, often self-inflammatory, rarely self-deprecating, and endlessly varied. We tell each other the things we do well, like meals we cook, or things we do around the house. There is no need for us to apologise for acknowledging our greatness, we want to hear it all.

Jane is a garden designer in Bristol (message me if you need one) and Louise runs a cinema in Melbourne (if you’re there, you must all go, it’s called the Thornbury Picture House – shameless best mate plug). Their common ground seems to be taking the piss out of me. This can range from the position I sleep in (face down with my arms by my side; LITERALLY the unsexiest position possible), or my obsession with my appearance (often centred around my eyebrows or hair straighteners), or my appetite (often centred around the sheer magnitude of it). I love it all. No one on this earth knows me better than Jane and Louise. I can be 100 per cent myself at all times. They are the only people I fart in front of. Unless it’s an accident.

Group Two

US LOT – on here we have Kelly, Michelle and Mel. These are my LA besties. We all have young kids, and we text all day every day about kids, family life and vaginas. The chat here is random and more about the day-to-day grind. It’s funny and supportive and a great place to bitch about the small stuff. Michelle works in business. Mel works for a start-up called Daily Karma, and she is also a doula (she watched Valentine come out of me) and a badass women’s rights activist. And Kelly is an ex popstar turned singer/songwriter with a voice like an angel who is currently learning how to perform sound baths. We all have two kids each. Workwise, I rarely have any idea what Mel and Michelle are talking about, and Kelly is all earthy and spiritual. They are all quite earthy and spiritual actually. Kelly lives a bit further away, but Mel and Michelle and I live streets away from each other, so it was really weird not seeing them as much in person in the early days of isolation. Even though we were socially distant, we still felt close. We’d hear the same helicopters circling the neighbourhood and bump into each other sometimes. These guys are very important to Chris and me. None of us live near our families, so we are all aunts and uncles to each other’s kids. Our kids have grown up together. And as soon as the restrictions began to lift a little, they were the first people we wanted the kids to see.

Group Three

DRUNKEN TURTLES – this one is a real breakthrough group from 2020. Art’s school year was called the ‘Sea turtles’. We had a ‘mum dinner’ that I was terrified about, but we all got on great and then set up a WhatsApp group, which is a real hoot. I’d been terrified about the dinner because I had thoughts like, ‘just because we have kids doesn’t mean we have anything in common’. Blah blah blah. I was still in total denial that I was a forty-year-old mother of two. I’d had years of negative ‘school gate’ chat drilled into me from other mums, TV shows, articles, etc., and I didn’t want to be a part of it. I wanted to be the kind of mum who dropped my kid off and picked him up, no more involvement. I didn’t want my life to become about PTAs and school fundraisers. BOOOORRRIIINNNGGGGG. I presumed ALL other mothers were the exact opposite of me and that all we would talk about at the dinner would be the kids and the teachers.

Turns out, I am the only asshole in the group, because all the mums are totally awesome, way cooler than I could ever be, and all interesting, hilarious and super smart. And I realised as I chomped down on the best chicken parmesan I have ever had in my life, that I was ready to be a forty-year-old mother of two, and that talking about the kids with like-minded people was actually fun. I love these women. I am delighted to be one of them. That night we all ate too much, drank too much and massively over-shared. My favourite kind of evening.

The WhatsApp chat is fun.

The chat ranges from parenting to gyno appointments, rants about Trump, recommendations for local stuff, TV shows and medical matters. We also have one paediatric doctor in the group, so she is amazing at answering any Covid-related questions we have. There’s a manager of some major pop stars and a sex therapist too, among many other interesting people. And that is what I have come to love about being a mum with a kid at school; you get thrust in with people you might never otherwise meet and, if you embrace it, it can be really, really fun. I have a lot to thank this group for. They kicked off my experience of being a ‘school mum’ with a blast. I’m finally really into it – it’s just a shame the bloody school has been shut down.

Group Four

BEST CREW EVER – this one consists of my friends Gemma, Ophelia and Josie. We were all close to Caroline and every now and then one of us pops up in this group to say, ‘Hey, I feel sad, how you guys doing?’ and it’s lovely. When you lose a friend, friendship becomes everything.

After the funeral, we knew we had to be there for each other. It’s obviously been hard, especially with me being in America, and the world being in lockdown. But we all loved her so much and this group is there when any of us need it. All my friends have been there for me this year, but the ones who knew Caroline like I did have been very important. This chat group is like a cushion of warm, cosy support; a massive comfort in very testing times.

I also want to give a shout out to Nancy, Carrie, Cam, Shawnta, Kristen, Jo, Dee and many more … You know who you are. I have so many brilliant women that I call my friends. I know that makes me very lucky and I feel it deep in my bones. There is a good chance that none of them will read this book, but if you do, I LOVE YOU and thanks.

I believe female friendship makes the world a better place. Men operate more individually, striving for personal success. That is a huge generalisation, but I’m pretty certain it is true. A man’s mentality is to hunter-gather and provide for himself and his family. A woman’s mentality is to connect with others and build community. We spread ourselves further, we lean on each other more. When you share yourself with other women, and you allow them to do the same, you find your power. The women in my life are my backbone. I tell my friends everything, always, all of them. The second a thing happens, my thumbs get into action and tell them. The immediate inpouring of support is something I have come to rely on.

Here are the reasons why female friendship is so important:

 You can have honest feedback that doesn’t cause a fight. Honesty in romantic relationships can be hard because you have to live right on top of the emotional consequences. Personally, I tend to hold things back and let them fester, which is a disaster. I am much better at speaking up in my friendships than I am in marriage, which, as you can imagine, is really fun for my husband.

 I’d argue that my best friends know me better than anyone. No matter how close I am to Chris, there are things about me he will never understand because he isn’t female. The way I talk to him is different, the way I open up to him is different. The way I rely on him is different. I love the way he protects me and makes me feel so secure. But the relationship is different, even he wouldn’t deny that. I see it often in the depths of chats we have about certain things. For example (and this is a frivolous example, because I am not here to share my actual problems), I was telling him about a dream that I had and saw him, quite rightfully, glaze over. So I got on the chat with Mel, Michelle and Kelly and told them instead. I was immediately given a deep analysis of the dream and ideas and suggestions as to where it came from and what inspired it. THAT is what girlfriends do. It isn’t the husbands’ fault, it’s just that we are wired differently. I’m cool with it, because I have my girls. My female friends are my emotional support animals. Even when they only exist on text, I need them just the same.

 A great friendship is like having all the best boyfriends you ever had merged into one person, without the pressure of having to live with them or maintain a sex life when you’re tired. It’s why losing one is so awful. It’s not just one person, it’s a collection of memories, conversations and laughter that connect you to someone. A friendship is a link in a chain, but with this particular design, you can’t replace it if it breaks. I realised immediately that the gap Caroline left could not be filled. Our isolation texts would have been hilarious. I imagine them in my head all the time. Instead, I knew I had to make the absolute most of everyone else. Work harder at those relationships and do my best to keep them going.

In lockdown, it all happened on my phone. The WhatsApp groups were like unscrewing a bottle of something fizzy. Each message relieved a little bit of pressure, provided a moment of relief, a reassurance that the female energy in my life will always be there, even when one is gone. In such sadness there was solidarity. I felt very lucky to be a woman.

I feel sad for my two sons that they will never feel the power of female friendship for themselves. The least I can do is surround them with mine. As soon as this is over, regular ‘Ladies Nights’ will be a feature in our house. I want Art and Valentine to feel the energy of that solidarity. The laughter, the support, the warmth and maybe, most importantly, the incredible display of sensational vintage kaftans.

PIECE THREE

31 March

Isolation Update – Sausages and dresses

Well, here we are again. Another update where I try to fill a page by making absolutely nothing sound interesting. We made it through the weekend. It was nice and felt different because neither of us tried to work. It was DIY, sorting shit out and childcare central around here for two whole days. You can imagine how much I drank.

Yesterday, I cooked our favourite dinner – corned beef and cabbage with a leek and potato gratin. It was LOADED with cheese and oozing with fat and we ate it all and loved every mouthful. Sundays HAVE to be about food, right?

I’d done a Lizzo Peloton class in the morning. It was thirty minutes of hard cycling JUST to Lizzo music. I tried to sing along but could hardly breathe, so afterwards I put on her album and had a kitchen disco while I grated cheese. I felt smug as hell and kept singing ‘Feeling smug as hell’ to the tune of ‘Feeling Good as Hell’. Perfect. It’s exactly what Lizzo would want.

I chatted to my dad on Sunday, and he told me a marvellous story about how he was on FaceTime with my sister and felt what he thought was a big mole on his face. He got very upset about it, and while on the phone to Jane looked in the mirror. ‘Oh no, I’ve got a … no, wait …’ He then realised it wasn’t a mole but a Coco Pop. Him and Jane then totally lost it and I was SO happy to hear that such laughter existed in this weird and unsociable time. He couldn’t wait to tell me about it. And I laughed for about an hour. Until Valentine wet his pants again. Urgh.

We ran out of eggs yesterday and I honestly felt like I was in the war and soldiers were going to come around with tickets that would get me dairy products.

That isn’t what happened. I just went to the shop and got some more eggs.

It did make me think what the perfect emergency supplies would be. Some obvious, some that you only realise you need when the chance of purchasing them is dramatically reduced.

When the pandemic hit, the shelves were so empty. Before I left for Caroline’s funeral, I had a small but genuine fear of not getting home. So I stocked up for Chris and the boys, because I needed to know that they would be alright if they weren’t able to buy food. I think this is what they call being a ‘Mumma Bear’. I went to Target, aiming to buy tins and dried food and loo roll, stuff like that, but the shelves were empty. It was frightening. Nothing had been announced at that point, the word ‘lockdown’ wasn’t yet a common term on everyone’s lips.

I managed to get some tinned vegetables, some weird-shaped pasta that no one else wanted, kitchen roll – the useless and totally unabsorbent kind – flour, long-life milk, jars of peaches and other random shit that I thought Chris could fathom some meals out of, if they got stuck. I told him he had enough to survive on for a week, if this ‘lockdown’ thing, whatever that was, actually did happen. (AND OF COURSE IT DID, IT HAPPENED WITH BLOODY BELLS ON.)

So I’ve been thinking, here is my ultimate list and what I will be putting in airtight containers in our basement when we move house. I reckon, with all of this, we could survive about ten days, no problem.

Loo roll, kitchen roll, cleaning supplies. Toothpaste, soap, shampoo and razors. Lots of sunscreen. Baby wipes, laundry detergent and dish soap.

Cooking oil AND olive oil, flour, baking soda, baking powder, yeast, sugar, coffee, teabags, long-life nut milk (always makes me laugh), dried fruit, egg substitute. Salt and pepper. Ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, chocolate. A huge bag of rice and a whopping great bag of pasta. A few different shapes, because the shape DOES matter, depending on the sauce. (I still have standards in lockdown.) Japanese panko breadcrumbs (if the kids are refusing to eat the basic food, they might eat it if you cover it in breadcrumbs and fry it). Apple juice. Rice cakes. Honey, Marmite, huge jar of peanut butter, big box of Cheerios.

Tins of peaches, pineapple, coconut milk, tomatoes, tomato paste, ready-chopped garlic (hate it normally, but I cannot survive more than twenty-four hours without garlic), baked beans, chickpeas, peas and a few random kinds of beans for flavourless vegan stews if shit gets really bad.

For the freezer: pretentious beef hot-dog sausages (no butts and eyeballs). Bread. Tortilla wraps. Individually wrapped steaks. Chicken thighs. Bratwurst. Beef mince. Tilapia fillets. As many bags of frozen fruit and vegetables as you can get in. Butter, ready-made pastry and a few frozen pizzas. Packets of ham, turkey and sliced cheese. Frozen chopped onion.

For the kids – lollipops, so I can shut them up in a crisis. Fruit jerky. Loads of healthy-ish granola bars. Seaweed. Cartons of apple juice.

PLUS, so many crisps that you can barely get into the basement. Like, all of the crisps. Build this collection over time. Every time you go to a shop, buy some, and add to the stock. DO NOT be complacent about the crisp supply, just keep plugging away at it. For your entire life.

AND THEN …

10 x Casamigos tequila (it’s the brand George Clooney created. He is my boyfriend.)

5 x fresh lime juice

3 x triple sec

12 x good quality Spanish red wine

12 x dry, crisp white wine

Plastic cups in case things get smashed in an earthquake

A shitload of weed gummies

OK, that’s it.

Reading that, it might actually be quite a fun week.

Right, I’m off for a margarita and I’ll make something FABULOUS in the kitchen. Or maybe I’ll just smash a bag of Kettle chips and whack some fish fingers in the oven.

IS IT TOMORROW YET?

Love Dawn x

1 April

Isolation update – SUCH a Good Mum

I got all ‘Instagram Mum’ on Saturday and we painted terracotta pots with leftover paint samples. They look amazing and the kids loved doing it. I will be proud of myself for the rest of my life for doing an hour of ‘crafts’ with my children. The pots are so cute and really brighten up the garden.

I’m taking the wins where I can get them.

I’ve never been someone to get annoyed by the ‘Smug Mum’ scene on Instagram that gets everyone so riled up. When women post those perfect family photos, where the mummy and daddy are laughing at the kid playing in a pile of mud but it’s in portrait mode and the mum is close by with a towel at the ready and a load of LOLS and the caption reads something ridiculous like ‘I love it when he gets all messy. He’s a kid, it’s what they do. Let them play with mud!’ I don’t get annoyed because we all know what happens next.

She goes in to retrieve the child from the mud. The child goes ballistic and smothers the mum’s pretty white dress in mud that she later discovers has tar in it and will never wash out. The child’s muddy hands go into the mother’s mouth, so the mother eats the mud. The father tries to help, to which the mother screams ‘YOU DON’T NEED TO FIX THIS’ because she harbours so much resentment towards him because he only took two weeks’ paternity and spent the whole time playing online poker. Eventually, the mother gets the child out of the mud, her dress and face soiled. The child then scratches its long, untrimmed nails down her face, leaving what will probably be a permanent scar. She drags the child kicking and screaming to the bath, where she showers it down while it thrashes around so badly that it smacks its head on the side of the bath, getting a golf-ball level bump that she has to disclaim on a form when she drops the child at day care the next day. She tries to dress the child as it kicks her in the tits and face until the mother is so despondent she puts the TV on and collapses on the sofa, only to be jumped on by the other kids that she had forgotten to feed. A few hours later, when she is exhausted, weepy and possibly quite hammered, she looks at her phone and sees the lovely photo her husband took before all of the above happened and she decided to divorce him. So she posts it on Instagram, and allows the lie of perfection to cloud her reality. The husband says ‘Shall we go to bed’ and she says yes and follows him. They don’t have sex, the baby wakes in the night and the mother is sick because there was norovirus in the mud she ate.

HAVE I PAINTED A GOOD PICTURE THERE??

We all know that is what parenting young kids looks like.

But still, I’m proud of the pots.

In darker news, I got really pissed off to hear how many people in America (California especially) have rushed out to buy guns. People who would usually be ‘anti-guns’. Everyone is terrified that they will be attacked by people who have lost everything. I HATE IT. I have a zero-gun tolerance rule, no matter who the fuck you are. Same rules for all. Also, nothing bad has happened yet. NO TO GUNS. The fear, the paranoia, it has to stop. I hate it. You’ve been asked to stay home so you don’t catch flu, you don’t need a fucking gun. What are you going to do, shoot the virus?

Makes me SO MAD.

(Imagine if, after writing that, I get murdered in my own home by a maniac that I could have shot with a gun.)

What will be will be. I will not have a gun in my house, ESPECIALLY because of my kids. Even though we had a shotgun when I was a kid, and I was amazing at hitting Coke cans at the bottom of the garden. Reason ONE I don’t want a gun in the house … KIDS LIKE PLAYING WITH THEM.

I hated everyone when I found out they were buying guns. EVERYONE.

We do have baseball bats around though – we’re not fucking stupid.

Remember when I painted those pots?

Love Dawn x

2 April

Isolation update – Licking the cheese

My cheese intake has more than quadrupled since isolation started. I have it in sandwiches, on forks, I lick it off knives, and sometimes I just stand next to the fridge and eat it directly from the door.

Marmite and cream cheese sandwiches though, mmmmmm.

I risked my life in the supermarket today and got loads of nice food. It’s literally all we have that changes each day, so I’m going for it with yummy meals. Also, I’ve introduced a 4 p.m. charcuterie board. My kids are gonna be such wankers.

Seriously though, my ‘thing’ in life is food. More so than dresses, it’s so important to me. I think I have a really emotional connection to it because I lived with my grandparents until I was ten, and all they ever cooked was ham, egg and chips type stuff (don’t get me wrong, I LOVE that food). So when I moved in with my aunty and uncle, and they were serving up fish with capers, whole crabs, oysters, steaks, full Sunday roasts, GODDAM avocado mousse starters, my taste buds got the kind of wake-up call that changes you forever. Food became my obsession, as cooking is now. My favourite part of every day is making the food we eat. I shop, I cook, I follow recipes and I make shit up. It makes me SO happy..

I don’t know if any of you ever listened to my podcast series ‘Get It On’. It was an interview show where I asked my guests why they wear what they wear. At the end of every episode, I asked them: If there was one photo that represented who you are the most, what would it be? For me, it was simple. The photo would be me, in my favourite vintage Ossie Clarke dress, getting a tray of sausages out of the oven. I picked this image (the photo doesn’t have to exist, you can make it up) because it’s about my love of vintage dresses, but also the big tray of sausages suggests I am cooking for a bunch of people. Which is me at my absolute happiest.

So, I ask you, what would you be doing in your photo?

Love Dawn x

3 April

Isolation Update – Stupid orange things: no!

It was Chris’s morning with the kids, so I lay in bed like a lush, drinking coffee until 8 a.m., then did the Lizzo Peloton class and ate bacon to make up for it. I think that is what they mean by a ‘balanced diet’?

Nailing it.

I took the kids to the park today. Our usual spot (the baseball pitch) was empty, which was great. Valentine had a meltdown within thirty seconds, and Art followed with an absolute belter a few minutes later. Both sat on the edge of the baseball pitch, next to a little plastic orange triangle, screaming with high emotion about God knows what. Little did I know, but two big men who wanted bigger muscles had put a row of those orange things in a line to create some sort of circuit for their exercises. They got really cross at me for bringing kids into their situation. They were grunting and sweating out of their foreheads at me. All ‘Urgh’ and ‘You’re in our spot.’ Please see my problem … I now have FOUR men being grumpy with me in the park. I asked mine to get up, but they wouldn’t. So the two workout freaks huffed and puffed some more. I tried to lift one of mine, saying loudly, so the men heard, hoping they’d cut me some slack, ‘Come on, we are in the way.’ But the men got madder at me and looked at me like I was totally ruining their life. I got upset. My kids get out the house for less than an hour a day and these men are pissed off that they are within a foot of their stupid orange cone? FUCK. OFF.

I suddenly felt rage. Real rage. The two men tried to stare me down. The park was practically empty, they could see my kids were being assholes and that I had a lot on my plate, but they didn’t care. MEN! They could have just moved their STUPID orange plastic thing five feet to the right, and all would have been well. But they didn’t. (I would have done it myself, but it could have had coronavirus on it.) They looked at me like vermin, because I dared to have children. So, I Mumma-beared the shit out of it.

‘OWN THE FUCKING PARK, DO YOU?’ I screeched to the men.

On that note, both of my children stood up and walked away. I was left, quivering, livid, determined. The two men pretended not to notice me, but I stood firm. ‘There is all that space over there,’ I continued. I then flicked my hand violently in the direction of grass. They came over, picked up the orange thing and moved it. Easy. I followed my children over to the nearby tree they were now hiding behind.

‘Are you cross, Mummy?’ Art said.

‘Not with you, baby,’ I told him. ‘But those men are ASSHOLES.’

Something tells me I won’t be Iceland’s #mumoftheyear this time round.

We found another corner of the park, and an old lady stood around twenty feet from us doing lunges. She had a lot of questions: ‘Are you a full-time stay-at-home mum?’ she asked. To which I said, ‘Yes.’ Because right now I am, and I couldn’t be bothered to explain otherwise. ‘What does your husband do?’ she asked. ‘He’s an actor,’ I replied. She then made all sorts of assumptions.

‘I’m an acting teacher,’ she said.

‘Oh nice,’ I replied.

‘Tell him to call me, I’ll teach him how to act.’

‘You know, he’s doing OK, actually. But thanks so much.’

‘He needs lessons,’ she said.

‘He’s doing fine, really,’ I said.

But she wouldn’t let it go. So I ended up yelling – because she was quite far away – ‘It’s FINE, he is CHRIS O’DOWD.’ Joggers stopped jogging. Dogs stopped barking. Trees stopped swaying. She yelled back ‘WHO?’ And then jogged off.

SO awkward.

I had tequila at 4 p.m. and I think it saved my life. I also smoked some pot then smashed half a saucisson and a massive lump of brie. BEFORE dinner. That’s where I’m at.

LA announced that school is out until September. It is full-on news. Awful, in a way. Wonderful, in another. I am trying to be good at this. Trying to imagine the story I tell of the PANDEMIC in ten years.

‘It was a weird and scary time, but we got through it. It was months of family time that we’ve never had since. It was special. We barbecued, sat naked in the paddling pool, watched movies, ate chips. We painted each other’s nails, played with the dog, put the kids to bed then watched loads of great movies. We played backgammon and had lots of sex, made up games, taught the kids how to read. I tried new recipes, we ate some amazing food, I took care of the old lady next door, FaceTimed my family loads, did as much as we could for people who were struggling and tried to write some really funny things. It was a weird time, but we did it, and we had a lot of fun.’

My reality is NOT THAT, but I am going to try to aim for it, even a little.

What would you like your PANDEMIC story to be, and how likely is it that you think it will happen?

Love Dawn x

3 April

Isolation Update – Let me squeeze your finger

I don’t mean to go on about this, but do you remember that time I painted those terracotta pots with my kids?

An absolute triumph.

Such a good mum.

I literally ran out of ideas thirty seconds after that, and can’t be bothered to do anything right now, but nothing takes away from the fact that I did it.

Is it 2023 yet? Because maybe this will be over by then.

Isn’t it funny that all those people who get Botox won’t be able to get it while this is happening? I wonder if Instagram will just go really, really quiet. I hope we get to see their real faces. I hope they get to see them too, and realise that actually they’re alright without it.

I had a nice day. Nothing happened, nothing didn’t happen. It was just a fine day. We baked a terrible apple pie. For some reason I’m not getting my squishy, sugary, gooey bit right. I put chocolate in it, which was a storming success. Then I warmed it up, shoved on a dollop of ice cream and it was YUM. I don’t enjoy baking, but the kids LOVE it, so I am going to get better at it. I’ll be the next Mary Berry by the end of this. As in, I’ll be eighty-five. WHEN WILL THIS END?

I had halloumi for lunch, because now I just fry my cheese.

And here’s a really simple salad recipe that I’m thinking of making for dinner, so nice as a side on a hot day:

Peel and cut an apple into small slices, then halve them

Chop a shallot (why does that always make me think of Jilly Cooper novels?)

Chop some celery

Add some raisins (optional)

Spoon in a big blob of mayonnaise

Sprinkle with paprika

It’s REALLY yummy. My Aunty Jane used to make it a lot and it reminds me of home. She does the most brilliant BBQs. A variety of meats, lamb steaks, sausages, even some salted mackerel. Her selection of salads was always the best. The one above, with another that always took guests by surprise: garlic, mint and salt mixed into Greek yogurt, poured lavishly over sliced cucumber. Another would be the freshest Guernsey tomatoes with basil, and then a big bowl of Jersey Royals. We’d sit at the table outside, my uncle in charge of the BBQ, and eat it all up while our tortoise, Daisy, ambled around under the table nibbling our toes. The perfect Sunday, and I miss it so much. It’s comforting to imagine them there, carrying on as though things are normal, but without anyone else with them. Daisy will miss my toes, they were always her favourite.

Anyway, any of the salads above go brilliantly with BBQ or ribs. Do you ever do ribs? It’s quite American. Ask your butcher for a baby back of ribs. Put the ribs into a shallow baking tray with about half an inch of water. Season the ribs. Wrap them very tight in tin foil and put them in the oven on whatever 200 degrees Celsius is where you live. Cook them for two hours. When done, get them out, SLATHER them in BBQ sauce and put them back in on a higher heat for about fifteen minutes. Until the sauce is all hot and sticky. DONE. BOOSH. BACK OF THE NET – 400 FOOT JIZZ.

Over and out in a storm of food and jizz. How was your day?

Love Dawn x

No Such Thing as Calories in Lockdown

I love food.

I realise that’s a basic statement and might not sound like it warrants a whole load of page-time, but for me, it does. Food is the great passion and pleasure of my life. Reading cookbooks, shopping for ingredients, spending hours in the kitchen, making it, serving it and then eating it. Brilliant.

I think my love of food stems from a moment in my childhood where I ‘changed’ parents. After my mum died, I lived with Nanna and Pop. They were East Enders without a particularly diverse palate. Our dinners were classic 1980s nosh. Findus Crispy Pancakes, ham, egg and chips, fish and chips on Fridays. We’d have a roast on Sundays but, at Pops’ request, the meat would be very well done and the veg nice and mushy. I am in no way slamming this menu; I used to think it was the best in the world. My personal favourite (and if you’ve read my book Paper Aeroplanes you will recognise this) was tinned chicken in white wine sauce, with in-the-bag Uncle Ben’s rice and lashings of salt. Ideally eaten out of a bowl, on the floor, next to the heating vent in the kitchen. Heaven.

Delicious as it was, there wasn’t much in the way of experimentation. Salt and frying made everything delicious. But when I was ten, my sister and I moved in with Aunty Jane and Uncle Tony, and the world of food opened up in a whole new way. All of a sudden, the menu expanded beyond my wildest dreams. Rich and tasty made-from-scratch Bolognese, mussels marinière, fillet steak, grilled skate with capers, avocado mousse (gloriously 1970s, always welcome), and everything served with a side salad, possibly a starter of Parma ham and melon with a drizzle of walnut oil and a selection of good cheese to top it off. My taste buds got the wake-up call of all wake-up calls. I remember at first finding everything a little bland, and my Uncle Tony repeating ‘only add salt after tasting’, because I was used to a more ready-meal level of saltiness. But I adjusted, and then actual flavours stole the show. My uncle was a pilot and had a little four-seater Piper Arrow plane, G-BAAZ. We used to hop over to various parts of France at the weekends (I know, I know, it wasn’t only the culinary part of my life that changed). There is one story my uncle always likes to share about us all being in a restaurant, likely in either St Malo or Dinard. The waiter apparently asked me what I wanted to eat, and I asked for six oysters. Apparently the place went quiet when I proceeded to add, ‘And then I’ll have twenty-four for my main course.’ I was ten. The whole restaurant was struck dumb as they watched this child hoof oyster after oyster, like that was entirely normal.

I have since developed a severe allergy to oysters, coming close to death twice in the space of ten weeks after eating them. The first was raw, the second was cooked, which is why I thought it would be OK. I didn’t know that once you have been poisoned by one, you are likely to have the same reaction every time. MY ACTUAL GOD. I won’t go into the details of what I went through because it’s hands down the most disgusting story imaginable, but put it this way, my oyster days are over. And anytime I see one going towards someone’s mouth I turn into the woman from the Shake n’ Vac adverts from the 1980s; launching forward in slow motion, screaming ‘Noooooooooo!’

But don’t let me put you off if you love them. You eat your oysters. AT YOUR PERIL.

I found the adventure that food offered me one of the most exciting things about life. I experienced loss and true sadness as a kid. Food gave me joy. When I ate, I felt happy. Luckily for me, I am an extremely indulgent person, but I don’t have much of an addictive personality. Although there are a few things I should disclaim here in case that statement ever gets contested: I could be on the verge of being clinically addicted to lip balm, crisps, eye shadow and pictures of Cher in the seventies. Apart from that, my indulgences are largely optional. BUT as a teenager my love of food did mean I never particularly loved my body. This was due to two things 1) a massive appetite and 2) no real knowledge of nutrition. Aside from the good food that my aunty cooked me (a pretty solid and varied Mediterranean diet involving lots of fish, olive oil and side salads), when she wasn’t looking, the food I ate was terrible. Between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, I averaged about seven bags of Wotsits, two squishy canteen sausage rolls, a blue Boost (that I would separate so I could first eat the biscuit base, and then roll the toffee into a ball), chips and mayonnaise and multiple cans of fizzy drinks EVERY SINGLE DAY. Is it any wonder I never had the confidence to wear a swimsuit on those sunny Guernsey beaches? I used to eat crisps like my life depended on it. I felt uncomfortable in myself. My tummy was always big, my chins followed suit. I wasn’t what would be referred to as ‘fat’ by other kids at the time, but I had a paunch. And I didn’t like it. In the nineties, I had no idea that it was the food I was eating that caused it. It’s so annoying to look back on it now. I wish I’d just stripped off and run into the sea. I hate how self-conscious I was back then. Such a waste of all that beach time.

Chris and I have been really firm on healthy food, and for that reason the kids get all sorts of treats, but they are always that: treats. We make a real song and dance about every cookie, and Art lights up like Charlie in the chocolate factory when he eats one. I think that’s right, for sugar to be a bonus rather than something they take for granted. Also, my kids eat loads of raw vegetables (I’m basically Gwyneth). I picked this up from my sister, who was a few years ahead of me with her boys. I was at her house and saw that she gave them a few chunks of red pepper with their dinner. I didn’t think kids ate things like red pepper so was suitably impressed, and I stole this technique as soon as mine had teeth. Art now eats multiple pieces of raw vegetables every night, he chooses to eat them before he eats anything else on his plate. This is because I relentlessly tell them, ‘Vegetables help your body make poo.’ And as I have two boys, poo is a real hit in this house. Anything that promises it, is a winner. Valentine is more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy. He thinks vegetables are for losers, but I won’t give up because I know that one day what they eat won’t be down to me, and my nineties diet is not to be repeated.

Regardless of the secret processed food life I was living aged seventeen, I watched and learned from my aunty. Our small island was host to some incredible ingredients. Local beef, dairy, seafood from the rock pools I could see from the end of our garden. She talked about it all like I would new boyfriends. Adoringly, with excitement, with desperation to devour. Aunty Jane set the standard high for me, it just took me a long time to actually live that way myself. As I was launched into being financially self-sufficient at university, my diet got even worse. Disgusting, in fact. With double the amount of alcohol and a heady mix of uppers. But as adulthood kicked in, and especially since I’ve needed to feed my kids, I see my aunty as my mentor in the way I act about food.

I am a total meat snob. I’m not really into designer handbags, I have a wardrobe full of $20 vintage dresses and my husband and I share a car because we see no reason for the expense of two. We are not overtly lavish in our lifestyle. But meat – that is my financial downfall. There are two reasons for this, the first being animal welfare (you don’t have to be vegan or vegetarian to care about how animals are treated). The second is that if I am led to believe there are more hormones in what I am eating than in my own body, I will not enjoy the meal. I think being a meat snob is important for all sorts of reasons, but it is expensive and can, on occasion, make me look like a massive asshole. During the riots, for example (more on those later), Chris called me out for refusing to go to the supermarket closest to us because I didn’t like the chicken. ‘Dawn, stop being such a massive snob and get the meat from Sprouts!’ (A great place for EVERYTHING but meat, in my opinion.) ‘I CAN’T HELP IT,’ I roared. It’s my ‘thing’. In my defence, I will buy meat in most places, but I am always looking for the words ‘free range’, ‘organic’, ‘pasture raised’ and most importantly, ‘NO HORMONES EVER’.

In lockdown, my meat consumption has gone up dramatically (you might have already clocked this). If this isn’t a time to try new recipes and eat like your life depends on it, then when is? Also, as I had agreed with Chris that I would take on the task of all the food shopping and preparing all the meals (my choice, was fun at first, was so over it by June), I’ve had a lot of work to do. Food has been our greatest joy when being stuck at home, and I’ve gone for it every day. The one thing that’s not quite happened is family mealtimes. Honestly, no. Eating at a table with my kids is too stressful. They get so overwhelmed with excitement that they cannot sit still. Nothing gets eaten, they shout, and Chris and I end up telling them off. No, family mealtimes are a thing for the future.

Our ritual is this, and it will remain this for some time: I give the kids dinner at 5 p.m., then they watch TV while I make ours. We put them to bed around 7.30, then Chris and I kick back, put the telly on and eat whatever I have made with a lovely bottle of wine and we go to bed drunk. PERFECT lockdown evening. Every night. For basically a year. Occasionally losing the wine, so likely drinking double the next night. I suppose I better talk about drinking. Don’t worry, that will come, I’ll go pour myself a drink and write it.

PIECE FOUR

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