Be Thankful For What You've Got, Even If It Does Make You Late For Work.

Things are going from bad to worse in Japan, and I still can't sleep - thanks to my compulsion to follow every single new development on TV.

I think it might be contagious, actually. I'm watching this morning's Breakfast News, when Josh comes into the room looking like hell. It's his day off, and he's still wearing the clothes he went out in last night,  so I've no idea what he's even doing up so early. Unless he's got such a hangover that he's on a Paracetamol hunt, of course.

"In the bathroom cupboard," I say. "Help yourself. I'm busy watching this."

I wave him away, but he doesn't take any notice. Instead, he sits down next to me, and gives me a peck on the cheek. Then we both stare in silence at the latest pictures from the Fukushima reactor.

"Mol, turn the TV off now, and go and get dressed," says Max. "Otherwise we'll be late for work."

"Does it matter?" I say. "It feels inappropriate to be carrying on as normal when such terrible things are happening in another country."

"You can't let yourself think like that and, anyway, you doing nothing isn't going to help anyone, is it?"

I know Max is right but, even so, it feels almost obscene to be putting on lipstick and brushing my hair. What does it matter what I look like, when Nature can bring everything crashing down overnight?

I walk as slowly as I can to work, trying to note and appreciate all the stuff I normally take for granted. Like roads, and shops with food in them - not to mention the fact that I'm only breathing in exhaust fumes, and (hopefully) nothing worse.

This Buddhist-style process takes so long that it makes me late, and Greg isn't at all impressed when I try to explain what I was doing. He just takes one look at my face and says,

"Still staying up half the night watching News 24? You look like shit. And I think you may be going mad. Have a coffee and get a grip."

I do as I'm told, and it works - though, by lunchtime, I've drunk so much caffeine and smoked so many cigarettes that my hands are shaking, and Greg tells me that I'm talking so fast that I sound like Steve Ellington in a manic phase.

This is a bit unnerving, to say the least - but at least I'm working, and not thinking about Japan. Not until Sue Reynolds phones, anyway.

"Molly," she says. "How are you? I just wanted to check that Mr Sinclair is still planning to attend this year's welcome back party for the children?"

"Oh," I say, as I open Andrew's diary and check the date. "Yes, Sue - it's in the diary, so he'll see you next month. I might attend again, too, if you don't mind?"

"We'd love you to!" says Sue. "Look forward to it."

She seems genuinely pleased, though there's no need at all for her to sound so grateful. Not considering that all The Boss and I ever do is to turn up, talk to incredibly inspiring children and young people, and then have a weep in the car on the way home. Well, I do.

Andrew just heads for the pub to drown his sorrows, so he maintains his dignity for once - but I'm usually at the hiccuping and snorting stage by then, so I go straight home instead. I've never mastered that dignified noiseless weeping thing.

I'm getting a bit emotional now, actually, just from thinking about it. I sniff, and start hunting through my handbag for an unused tissue. Where the hell do the damn things go?

"'Bye, then, Molly," says Sue. "See you at the party. And don't forget it's the 25th Anniversary this year."

"How could I?" I say, but she's already rung off.

"There you are," says Greg. "Told you you'd feel better if you just buckled down and did some work."

I don't answer, in case my voice wobbles, so he walks up to my desk and stares at me until I look up.

"Bloody hell. Are those tears?" he says, passing me a clean handkerchief, presumably courtesy of his mum. "Who was that on the phone, and what the hell did they want if it made you cry?"

"Sue Reynolds," I say. "From Northwick Chernobyl Children's Project."

I don't say any more than that, because I still don't trust my voice, but Greg doesn't seem to need me to spell it out. Maybe male intuition really does exist?

"Ah," he says. "Now I see. Get that mascara off your nose, and then let's go and have a drink. If you like, we'll walk through the town square on the way. The fountain's not a patch on that one in Rome, but it still might be worth a try."

When we throw our coins in to the water, my instincts tell me that Greg and I make exactly the same wish: that a Fukushima Children's Project won't be required.

Mother Scissorhands

Honestly, sometimes I wonder about my mother. Today, during my visit, she insists on showing me what seem to be hundreds of items of clothing she has bought in the sales. They're all okay - if you like that sort of thing - until you look closely. That's when it becomes apparent that Mother Scissorhands has been at work, which is never good news.

Mum has altered every single thing that she has bought. Which would be fine, had she any sewing skills whatsoever - but she doesn't know one end of a sewing machine from another.  Her maternal contribution to my housekeeping skills was to offer to teach me how to re-spoke a bicycle wheel. I declined, and haven't regretted my decision so far.

I blame feminism. All those bra-burning and consciousness-raising mothers were all very well, but they didn't actually teach their daughters anything that would be useful in day to day life, except how to make your breasts droop more quickly than necessary. This is why I would starve to death if Max didn't cook; and if my grandmother hadn't taught me to sew, I'd be walking around with the hems of all my clothes dragging along the floor.

Anyway, back to the scissors. Mum has, in the space of the last fortnight, cut the sleeves off a beautiful top and two dresses; another dress has been deprived of its skirt and turned into a blouse, and the waistband has been chopped off at least three pairs of trousers. Farhi trousers. Not Primark. She seems to have forgotten my Nan's instruction to always assume that you are going to be run over by a bus when deciding what to wear in the mornings. I know Nan was referring to clean underwear, but Mum isn't going to look too refined when someone spots the fraying, hacked edges of everything she's wearing either.

"God knows why she buys any of these clothes, if she doesn't like them as they are," says Ted, before returning to his paper.

"They were bargains," says Mum. There's a whole debate possible on what constitutes a bargain, but that's for another time.

"I'd hide all the scissors in the house, if I were you, Ted," I say. I still haven't got over the childhood trauma of Mum giving my hair what she promised would be a trim, but which resulted in eighty per cent of it ending up on the floor. Then I was forced to parade the most lopsided hairstyle ever seen on a child - much to the amusement of my entire class. The woman doesn't know when to stop.

It all started with newspapers - the scissor-wielding obsession, I mean. Mum began by cutting out the odd article, usually about a food or activity that had been found to be somehow detrimental to health. Then the whole thing spiralled until it was completely out of control. Every drawer in the house is full of newspaper cuttings, which are so faded that now they're virtually illegible.

Even when you could still read them, it was pointless to do so - as, for every article praising the cholesterol-minimising effects of margarine, there were others which hyped the health benefits of butter. Those which cited the optimum dosages for health-giving vitamins had to be off-set against those advising that vitamin supplementation was inadvisable, and that a healthy, balanced diet was the only way to go. And so on, and so on.

Mind you, Mum does look good, and has far more energy than me - so maybe all that health information has paid off. I suppose she's not entirely bonkers, though the emerging table situation does cast further doubt on her sanity.

Over the last year or so, she has begun buying small tables. Loads of them, all only just big enough to hold a single cup and saucer - and with legs that stick out so far that they are an accident waiting to happen. I trip over two during today's visit alone. The tables are like Triffids, lurking wherever you least expect one, and threatening to overtake the numerous chests of drawers containing the cuttings archive.

Every time idiot brother Robin goes to visit, he phones me afterwards to say,

"It's getting more like a bloody nursing home round there every time I go. What the f*ck are all those tables about?" (Robin is the Buddhist practitioner of compassion, in case you had forgotten - but he can be horribly accurate.)

Anyway, after I've stared in disbelief at Mum's latest "alterations" and righted a couple of overturned tables, she makes us a cup of tea and places our cups on some more tables. I try to move my table nearer to my chair, catch its leg in the rug, and tip this one over too.

When I've cleaned up the spilt tea, we're finally settled for "a nice chat." Ted promptly falls asleep, which means that Mum can ask me how Dad is. I do wish she wouldn't. I've always hated being asked how the other parent is. You never know what the right answer is supposed to be: fine, or totally miserable since they divorced you and married someone else? Questions about Dad are even more uncomfortable an experience since the Gary Glitter incident, as I doubt Mum'll see the funny side of that.

"I hear your Dad's back in Thailand," she says.

"What? He's only just come back." How does she even know he's been? Did I tell her? "How did you know? And what d'you mean, back?"

Mum looks flustered.

"Oh, I must have got the wrong end of the stick," she says. "I thought someone mentioned he'd gone recently, but maybe it was a while ago now. I do get terribly confused these days."

It's a good recovery, I'll give her that - but then she's as sharp as a tack, or even scissors, table mania notwithstanding. Before I can point out that there's nothing wrong with her memory, she has changed the subject.

"And how's dear Josh?" she says. "Do you think he's done okay with in his exams?"

"Only if they are giving A Levels away with packs of playing cards," I say - which is uncomfortable to admit, but at least the change of direction allows me to avoid telling Mum about the virtually naked Thai girl. That might make her think of other uses for her scissors. In fact, I might borrow them myself if Dad ever sends me any more photos like the last lot.

As I walk home, with a large brown envelope containing some cuttings Mum thinks might contain useful information, I find that I am still thinking about what she said about Dad. There's something about the certainty with which she said "back in Thailand" that makes me think there is more to this than meets the eye. I shall phone Dad when I get home, as I can definitely hear an unpleasantly familiar tune in my head.