But I’m not collecting it till late on the 23rd. So we’d have to travel on Christmas Eve. Flights would be extortionate. Things would go wrong, we’d end up being those people on the news spending Christmas in Heathrow. Some bastard would make us have a singalong and talk about the Blitz Spirit to the news people.’ Ellen is turning 39. Her husband, Simon, is obsessed with gadgets. Her children, Peter and Jane, create chaos and drive her to drink. Ellen likes wine, shoes and reminiscing about times in her life that involved Fun and Frolics rather than refereeing fights over who had the remote first. This is her diary of her year as she approaches forty. What’s it like? Our set book for this month was "Why Mummy Drinks." by Gill Simms. The group when asked would recommend this book to their friends. Below are their most memorable and least enjoyable bits of this book. And… I might have accidentally tumble-dried your favourite cashmere jumper! What!’ he protested, as I opened my mouth to roar with fury. ‘At least I’m admitting it. It did cross my mind to just put it in your drawer and let you think you’d put on weight. And I’m being a good and kind and loving husband by trying to make Christmas magical, so you can’t be angry with me.’

I rather tearfully regaled Simon with this Lost Vision over dinner and he said he was cancelling the Hallmark movies channel. This is our chance for us, Ellen,’ he said. ‘Come on. What’s that bloody book you’re always on about, some orphan who’s irritatingly jolly no matter what happens and finds something to be glad about?’ Yes, well,’ I wailed. ‘That was when there didn’t seem to be any hope that they ever would grow up and bugger off! I only wanted a piss and maybe a bath without someone hammering on the door demanding things from me. I didn’t actually want them to go off to the other side of the world forever.’ JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, MUM! And I haven’t ruined Christmas, that’s such a horrible thing to say to me!’ So, what bliss, I’d thought. Christmas – just Simon and me and Jane and Peter! No making bread sauce just for Geoffrey while Jessica had hysterics about gluten and carbs, no Louisa telling anyone who’d listen that she and all the children were vegan while the children went insane on Haribo and Louisa drank everything she could get her hands on before scarfing down twelve pigs in blankets while shitfaced. No Sarah asking if I was sure I had sterilised everything for Orla, because germs, while Orla toddled off to share a handful of purloined Bonios with my dogs. No hideous row between Mum and Natalia about Dad after Mum had hit the Gin & Its and insisted that everyone knew she’d been the only true love of Ralph’s life and she’d have been perfectly within her rights to contest that will, despite his divorcing her thirty years earlier.I enjoyed the book. It was very funny but rather risqué. I particularly found the Easter Egg hunt and the Fire Work display very memorable. If there was a problem with the book, it was the bad language and too much information about her Sisters children's Toilet habits." Maureen. Last year the local primary school borrowed him to star as the donkey because he’s so enormous. You can hardly call him “poor little Barry”.’ Mummy’s carefully laid plans of perfectly figging up the pudding, while sitting by the fire reading aloud from A Christmas Carol to her rapt rosy-cheeked audience, are suddenly in tatters. Spot on, and honest encounter of bringing up children and family life in general. Being a mother, wife and general everything. There may also be drink involved occasionally. Ok there will be drink involved and it's more than occasionally. Mummy is the self-styled Queen of Christmas, but just when she’s reached the pinnacle of perfection, and her Festive Vision is finally flawless, there’s no one around to witness it.

I had almost come to the conclusion that I didn’t really like the book, then I reread a few bits prior to writing this review and decided that I did enjoy it really; I just much preferred the blog. Reading this in small chunks may be best (I read it in a few days as I had lots of reading time while snuggling a not-sleeping toddler) to heighten the enjoyment. Is that really your greatest Christmas wish?’ asked Simon doubtfully. ‘To wear a cashmere jumper to the pub on Christmas Day?’

My parents’ divorce in my teens meant in theory that there were extra family groups who could potentially host Christmas, but when my late father was alive we were never quite sure who he’d be married to by Christmas, and more than once he’d found himself married to the sort of annoying woman who insisted on going on winter cruises, so hosting Christmas as well was seldom convenient. Peter is ‘finding himself’ in Thailand, while Jane has the effrontery to jet off skiing with her handsome new beau. Don’t do what? You’re the one who’s just announced they’re not coming home. It’s not like you’ve ruined Christmas or anything!’ I snapped sarcastically. Several people have asked recently what advice Mummy would give to new, or newish parents. Obviously the most terrifying thing about this is that there are people out there who are under the impression that Mummy knows anything at all about parenting, and is in some way a responsible adulting type of person. Mummy can hear the derisive laughter from pretty much everyone she knows at this notion. His mother informed us that she had assumed his wife would be buying his advent calendars for him, now he was married, which came as something of a surprise to me, as I did not remember anything in our wedding vows about ‘To Be Your Bloody Mother From This Day Forth …’ I bought him a calendar the next year as a joke, but he didn’t seem to realise the joke part, going so far as to tell me that for future reference, he actually preferred a Thornton’s calendar to a Dairy Milk one, but he appreciated the thought. And so I continue to buy my forty-year-old husband an advent calendar every year, because apparently I am his mum now, and he is a spoilt child.”