Meanwhile TL very kindly cooked for everyone, which was heroic – and very helpful as the girls and I didn’t get back until 7.30 after our madly cultural Wednesday, which sees assorted art, dance and music lessons crammed in higgledy-piggledy to minimise the dreary South Circular commute.

As a result of it all, we’re all a little tired today. And Bingo? He is exhausted. Bless.

It all left me musing the nature of presents. Mme Bovary, the cat, clearly felt there was no finer way for her to express her love for the family than to offer us a headless rodent. And it’s often the way that, when you buy someone a present, you just get them something you’d like yourself. I’ve had to start a little present book, where I note down the recipient and the gift, after trying to give one of my best friends a mango stoner twice in a row. Well, I just think they’re fantastic things and every home should have one. But possibly not two, I do see that.

It did occur to me that the cat probably found the taste of the small mouse very disappointing. She’s been brought up on a strict diet of Purina Chicken and Rice, after we ran out of the Hills Science Plan the vet recommended and she refused to go back to it. The taste of actual raw mammal must be very odd after carefully processed, triangular, dry chickenish, ricey, cardboard-looking nuggets. So maybe leaving the carcass for us wasn’t so much of a gift as a, ‘no, you eat it, I really couldn’t possibly’ moment.

It all reminded me of a birthday I had when the girls were very small. I was exhausted, and they had been particularly fractious, toddlers being no real respecters of birthdays, apart from their own. Eventually, it was nearly bedtime, and I was watching the minutes, when Child One turned to me. ‘As it’s your birthday, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s invite all my friends round for a party!’

Like the dead mouse, it was a kind thought. But really, Mme Bovary, you shouldn’t have.

My publisher was glad I liked my legs but pointed out sweetly I’d have to wait a bit before getting my own copy of the new edition. It won’t be out for eight months. I think I got my German in a bit of a tangle over at www.amazon.de . Even though you might think that a date is a date and is pretty clear in any language, being, ahem, numbers, it certainly wasn’t to me. I also copied in my lovely agent on my email.

My lovely agent then emailed back and pointed out that it would be very nice if I could show her, and my publisher, the odd page or two of the sequel to Schokoherz, which I have now been working on for, erm, two years. Well, that’s working off and on. More off than on, obviously. I’ve had some good excuses. Divorce, emotional turmoil, blah, blah, erm, the weather. And the cat sits on my keyboard! How on earth can I be expected to write under these conditions?

All right, all right, Lady Antonia Fraser managed to pen several whodunnits and a biography while running off with Harold Pinter, and he himself dashed off a play or two while trying to get divorced and remarried. I know this because I was given a copy of Must You Go?, Fraser’s account of her life with Pinter, for Christmas. I am much reassured by the fact that they had twenty or thirty happy years together after the traumatic bit was over. But obviously they were not made of really sensitive stuff, despite winning great cupboards-full of awards for their literary oeuvres, as they just kept on writing no matter what hoo-has were erupting around them. Or maybe they just didn’t have cats sitting on their keyboards?

Anyway, I accept that the time for prevarication is over. I have to show my publisher 35,000 words by April. I’ve written nearly 60,000 already, but unfortunately they are not in the right order. So I’ve absolutely got to get right down to it. A deadline is a very, very useful thing for concentrating the mind, for making sure that the endless evasion is over. I’m going to get on with revising the first draft straight away.

I’m starting tomorrow.

My picture (which of course wasn’t taken by me, it’s too good, it was taken by Child One) is funny ha-hawwwww, and all its words begin with ahhhhhh. It’s our little catkin, Madame Bovary, who was upset by seeing Child One’s suitcase as she prepared for a school trip a couple of weeks ago. She snuggled herself up in the duvet and accidentally made herself look a bit like  Beatrix Potter’s Tom Kitten, when he gets made into a roly-poly by the evil rat Samuel Whiskers.

See the similarity?

I love this picture. It makes me giggle. But I love the one of Mme B more. She is such a sweetie.

Take, for instance, the issue of cat food for the lovely Mme Bovary. As you know, I am devoted to that little catlet, and even put up with her prancing around my computer screen and sticking her furry bot in my face while I am trying to write. I am the first to admit, though, that she is a fussy soul. She will only eat Purina One Chicken and Rice. She has eaten this, with tremendous relish, since the exciting day when I couldn’t be bothered to get the special Science Plan food she’s supposed to be eating from the vets, and picked up the Purina from the big supermarket instead.

I am almost as loath to go to the big supermarket as the vets, though. The trouble with the vets is I have to walk there and back, and though it’s only minutes away, I am much too lazy  busy. The supermarket, by contrast, is easy to get to (you have to drive) but is full of stuff which is way too tempting. I always, always impulse-buy at big supermarkets and tend to come home with no meal ingredients, but a lot of eyeshadows which make me look like a deranged barmaid and usually odd items of homeware like bathmats or picture frames which looked ok in the shop but do NOT look ok at Divorce Towers.

Hence this week’s cunning plan. As I’ve mentioned before, if you use Ocado, or any of the online supermarket services, once and then do not go back, they start offering you discounts. This came to a crescendo in my inbox when I found Ocado offering me 20 per cent off. Yummy! As they stock Purina, I concocted one of my wiliest strategies yet, by combining a bumper order of 6 kilos of Purina Chicken and Rice with a load of other cupboard staple type stuff, which I didn’t actually need but which would entitle me to my bargain offer.

I was a bit confused when I saw the van sailing away from the house yesterday morning. It was supposed to arrive between 9 and 10, and it was then only 8.45. But when I got in, I discovered why. TL had taken charge of the delivery. There was a small clutch of bags at his feet. ‘That doesn’t look like much stuff,’ I said, surprised. ‘Ah well, I had to ask him to take the catfood away. It was the wrong sort.’ It would be an exaggeration to say I turned pale and clutched at the wall for support. But I was bitterly disappointed. Blimmin Ocado had run out of Chicken and Rice and tried to palm us off with Salmon instead. Mme Bovary would certainly have turned her whiskers up at that.

So I found myself at the big Sainsbury’s today instead, at the gorgeously named Dog Kennel Hill. I bought the Chicken and Rice Purina. I also came home with a L’Oreal eyeshadow, apparently as worn by Cheryl Cole, two deodorants that we don’t need on special offer and Braun replacement toothbrush heads, the whole lot somehow totting up to nearly £50. So much for my 20 per cent off. On the plus side, I did stop myself from buying a bathmat. Sigh.

Every time my back is turned, a certain furry someone creeps into the sitting room and removes a choice bauble:

Then, if she thinks she can get away with it, then Mme Bovary will take hold of the poor, defenceless bauble, and attempt to kick it to bits ……

She is soooo naughty!

If, by lucky chance, I am around and hear the distinctive whirring, kicking clicking sound of cat-versus-bauble, I will rush in and see this:

“What, Mummy? It wasn’t me, honest!”

I’ve heard this a hundred million times from the girls – but from the cat, it really takes the biscuit! Perhaps you can guess my response from the next picture:

Oh yes, it’s all festive fun and games at Divorce Towers!*

Happy New Year everyone, with a big mwah from me xx and let’s all have a fab 2010.

* Can I just point out that no super-naughty pussycats were harmed in the making of this blog – though they probably should have been