Dear Holly,
For the past year, I’ve been having an affair with the milkman, the postman, the man who reads the gas meter, the paper boy, the guy who fixed our downstairs toilet, the Avon lady and next door’s golden retriever. At first these liaisons seemed like a bit of harmless fun to pass the time while my husband is off playing golf or fiddling with his secretary, but now it’s starting to become a bit of a hassle. I don’t seem to get any ‘me’ time these days. Is there anything you can suggest to help me manage my time better and focus on more important matters, such as watching the entire final season of Lost?
Veronica,
Beaulieu
Dear Veronica,
It sounds to me like you’ve got far too much going on and you need to stop being friends with some of these people before it all becomes too much and you go mental like Mrs Peacock. Mrs Peacock was a teacher at my school who was always far too busy teaching history, geography and religious education, plus organising school fetes and coaching the netball team and constantly punishing small children for playground misdemeanours. She always had a manic look in her eye and it was clear it wouldn’t take much to push her over the edge. Which is why we weren’t surprised when someone (Oliver French) drew an interpretation of Mrs Peacock naked on the blackboard for the fifteenth day in a row and she went crazy and took Lucy Morris hostage in the PE cupboard for three hours. Lots of scary police officers surrounded the school and eventually Mrs Peacock was wrestled to the ground and disarmed of her stapler and HB pencil. We never saw Mrs Peacock again and it was all a bit weird for a while and they put security cameras in each classroom and replaced all the knives in the canteen with plastic spoons, but things are very much back to normal now. So if I were you I’d avoid doing a Mrs Peacock and restrict yourself to the postman and the dog.
Hope that helps!
Holly
