Hell can come in small packages

The delicious Jools Oliver says that being a mum to five children is “ten times harder” than any job her husband, the TV chef Jamie Oliver, has. She has described her role as “brain numbing” and “hell on earth”. Damn right. Anyone thinking spreadsheets are a special kind of tedious should spend a day playing schools over and over with a toddler, or being ordered around by a five-year-old who wants to play Sylvanian Families in a very specific way, which seems to involve you being a baby and her telling you off.

I love my child, but like any good relationship, we sometimes need space. I remember, on maternity leave, being insanely jealous of the fact that my husband got to go to work, where he could use the loo in peace. Even now, Friday afternoons – my “time off ” – fill me with the same dread I used to have as a twentysomething on a Monday morning. My job may have finished for the week, but my real work is just beginning.