Hideous Kinky: Molly Bennett's Guide To Inadvisable Methods Of Follicular Camouflage And Stress Relief.

God, my hair just will not grow. Well, it will - but only on my bloody face, and not on my head where it's supposed to be. It's very depressing, and provides nothing by way of cover for the incipient beard, which doesn't seem to have heard that UK growth has gone into reverse.

Talking of depressing, Max and I spend the morning plunged in gloom at the prospect of him losing his job, and things don't get any better when we look at the receipt from last night's shopping trip. Food is so incredibly expensive!

"Those bloody people on Help Me, Gok - I've Eaten Too Much must have a far bigger income than we do," says Max. "It'd cost a fortune to get as fat as some of them."

"Hmm," I say. "Though doesn't Gillian McKeith always say that beige foods are the cheapest - as well as being the most fattening?"

"Yes, but she's an idiot, isn't she?" says Max, "You can't trust anyone who doesn't realise that jungles tend to contain a lot of insects. Anyway, with the price of food of any colour, not to mention petrol, there's no way that we can afford to go out anywhere today, so we'll just have to stay in and try not to eat too much while we're at it."

Before I can reply, he picks up a Sudoku book and a pen, and settles down on the sofa. Honestly, I'm sure he uses those damn puzzles as an anxiety-distraction technique, though I suppose my own aversion to them may explain why he's so much less of a stress-head than I am. Normally.

Puzzles don't seem to be working their magic today, though - not if the twitching muscle in Max's cheek is anything to go by. I just hope it's not the start of a tic. Richard Bloody Levinson's got loads, and they are so contagious. By the time he leaves the office, I'm always twitching and scratching like a total lunatic.

Anyway, prevention is better than cure, so I decide that there must be something that's more fun and less likely to cause muscle spasm than Sudoku seems to be, and that Max and I can do together this afternoon - mustn't there? Preferably something that doesn't cost any money, while relieving stress at the same time, if that's not too much to ask.

"Why don't we go for a walk?" I say, after ten minutes' concerted thought.

"Where to?" says Max, looking out of the window at the pouring rain, and then back at me as if I am mad.

"I don't know," I say. "Round the block. A little constitutional."

As soon as I've said it, I can see that it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi, but I'm stumped for a better alternative - until I have my sudden brainwave. That's what comes of being married for aeons, I suppose: you get into such a rut that you miss possibilities that are staring you in the face.

I get there in the end, though, a bit like Gordon Brown. I just hope it brings me more joy than it brought him.

"We could always give up on today altogether, and just go back to bed," I say. "Seeing as it's raining, and there's not exactly anything better to do."

Much to my astonishment, Max agrees, and is off the sofa and up the stairs like a rat out of a trap. Which is either very complimentary, or a measure of how bored he really is. Beggars can't be choosers, anyway, so I follow him, feeling quite exhilarated by the success of my Big Idea.

This sense of achievement lasts for all of thirty seconds, until I walk past the mirror at the top of the stairs, and spot my face, spotlit by a cruel and unnecessary shaft of sunlight that's just broken through the clouds.

Oh, my God - there are even more hairs on my chin than I thought. Max'll freak out if he spots those during sex. He'll think he's in bed with a transvestite or something, and decide that Sudoku is far more appealing. I have to do something - fast - but the question is: what?

"Hurry up," says Max, who is already in bed, his clothes strewn all over the bedroom floor.

"Um, yes," I say. "Going as fast as I can."

Which is a lie, as I am actually taking my clothes off as slowly as possible, while trying to search for my tweezers on the dressing table at the same time. But there's no sign of the damned things, or of the dreaded Tweezi-wand or whatever it's called - and, anyway, I haven't got all day to start rolling that over my face. Now what, oh Brain of Britain?

I'm just about to pretend that I've suddenly developed a migraine, when I spot my salvation, lying amidst another pile of clothes and shoes in the corner of the room.

I bend down and sneakily pick it up, remove the last layer of my thermal underwear, and then crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head. I curl up in a ball, with my back to Max, while I wrestle with with my beard hair disguise. I am undoubtedly the last of the great femmes fatales.

"What on earth are you doing, Mol?" says Max, trying to pull the covers away from my head, and rolling me towards him. Then he lets out an amazingly loud yell, and jumps out of bed with a horrified expression on his face.

"Are you trying to give me heart attack?" he says. "What the bloody, bloody hell is that?"

"It's a balaclava," I say. "I thought it might be kinky."

Max sits down on the side of the bed, rolls his eyes as if he's dealing with a complete lunatic, and then says, very wearily:

"That's not the word that I'd have chosen."

How To Convince A Complete Stranger That He's Mad, Or Yet Another* Reason Why Josh Should Never Be Allowed In Car Parks

Honestly, the simplest thing is fraught with hazards in my family. Max and I decide to go shopping this evening - at the Morrisons near where Josh works, instead of at our local Sainsburys or Tesco.

I have decided that going further afield will lessen the chances of my being spotted and harassed by constituents, and save me the bother of having to wear my balaclava. Now I wish I hadn't bothered.

"We'll pick Josh up from work, and then go and do a quick shop," says Max, which sounds like a reasonable plan at the time.

The trouble starts when Josh doesn't finish work when he's supposed to and then, when he does finally get into the car, he claims that he's too tired to traipse round Morrisons.

By now, I can't face it either. I just want to get home quickly in time to watch The Killing, though I'm not expecting to want to kill my son by the time it starts. Or not yet, I'm not.

"I suppose I'll have to go in by myself, then," says Max. "While you two lazy buggers stay in the car and lounge about."

Which is fine by me, or was  - until Josh suddenly opens the car door and gets out.

"Where are you going?"I say.

"Ssh," he says, then rushes over to the Photo Booth machine situated outside the shop. I watch as he fumbles around in the slot where the photos come out, before he comes running back to the car, yanks the door open and throws himself headlong onto the back seat.

"Got it," he says.

Before I can ask what he's got, I see a man pull back the curtain of the booth and step out. He goes to the slot and removes what is presumably a strip of photos, looks down at them, and then jerks his head up and starts scanning the car park. He doesn't look very happy at all.

"Who is that man, and what's he doing, Josh?" I say.

"Shut up, Mum, and tell me when he's gone." Josh seems to be fumbling about and trying to put something into his wallet.

"What have you got there?" I say, at the same time as I make a grab for it. Call it maternal instinct, but I just know when Josh is up to something.

I turn on the interior light, to find myself looking at a photograph of the man that I can see out of the car window. A single photograph, with one neatly torn edge.

"Josh," I say. "What is this? Why have you got a photo of that man over there?"

"He's the Photo Booth repair man," says Josh. "He gives me and the lads hours of fun."

"How?" I say - though I really should know bloody better.

Josh explains that he and his friends are regulars in the Morrisons car park. Which sounds very dodgy indeed, and doesn't get any better when it becomes apparent that their target is the poor repair man.

"He comes once or twice a month," says Josh. "And he gets into the Photo Booth, starts fiddling around with the machinery and then takes some photos of himself. Then he carries on working inside the booth for a while - with the curtain still drawn across the front. When he's finished, he picks up his photos to check whether they've come out okay."

"And your involvement in this is - ?" I say, though I'm not at all sure I really want to know.

"Well, as soon as the photos come out, one of us rushes over, and grabs them out of the machine," says Josh.

"What - you steal his photos?" I say.

"Not all of them," says Josh. "We just tear one off the strip and then put the others back into the slot. Confuses the hell out of him."

"Hand it over," I say. "Now, or you're grounded."

"Killjoy."

Josh glares at me as he passes something over the back seat.

"Joshua," I say, in disbelief. "There are twelve different photos here. How long has this been going on?"

"About six months," says Josh. "He's getting crosser every time it happens."

I can no longer deny the fact that I am, quite clearly, the parent of a juvenile delinquent.



*See here for another reason why Josh should never, ever be allowed into car parks without being accompanied by his parents.

Wardrobe Essentials & The Perils of Flirting

My toes have suddenly gone all funny. Like Mum's - white wrinkly slugs attached to my feet. They're repulsive. I didn't realise that was due to age - just thought it was a peculiarity specific to my mother. Now I'll have to stop wearing sandals - is there no end to the parts of your body you have to keep covered once you pass a certain unpleasant birthday?    

No showing the tops of your arms or any leg above the knee, not to mention the baggy knees themselves. No wrinkly necks, no ageing hands and, now, no toes as well.

I might as well become a Muslim and wear a burka, as at least that would cover everything in one go. If you used all the cover-ups the magazines suggest, you'd look a right twit. Gloves; an artfully-draped scarf or huge necklace; a long skirt (with opaque tights); long sleeves segueing neatly into the afore-mentioned gloves. Bloody hell - soon it'll be a hat to obscure the bald patch or a balaclava to cover the incipient beard.

And soon wearing trousers will be out, too, as Mum says that, one day when you're least expecting it, your arse suddenly slips sideways and becomes flat and wide. I might as well just go to bed and stay there.

This is all the more bothersome as Johnny is emailing me more often these days. He says talking to me "puts a smile on his face" and that even his staff have commented on his change of mood. I suppose any distraction from the oil spill would be welcome, but it's flattering all the same.

I do wish he wouldn't keep referring to that business behind the Science block, though. I still can't remember what it was, but says he had to take his watch off because it was getting in the way. God knows what he means, but I bet it'll be embarrassing.

I really must find my diary for that year, although what's the point in flirting with someone when you'd have to keep everything covered if you ever met and took things further? That's probably why people stay married - to avoid the horror of having to disrobe in front of someone who isn't inured to disintegration via familiarity. Those who can't afford a personal trainer and plastic surgery, anyway.

Now I'm even more suspicious of Max's half-hearted attempts to get fit