Why It Is Inadvisable To Look In A Mirror When Recovering From Flu. Or Out Of The Window.

Well, I seem to be able to smoke again, so I suppose I must be on the mend, even though I still feel as if I've been hit by a bus.

Actually, I look as if I've been hit by a bus, too. Unlike Annoying Ellen. When I opened the bedroom curtains a minute ago, there she was in her garden, hanging her washing out. She must buy that underwear just for show.

I'm surprised she didn't spot me watching her, as my nose is still completely luminous.  Constant sex must protect against flu, if not other forms of infection - as I've never seen Ellen with a red nose. Not once. Maybe she has hers Botoxed, along with everything else. (I have seen her with a distinctly white one, but that's another story.)

God, I feel worse now I'm up. I think I may have to go back to bed. My delirium-induced sex-life with Martin Shaw at least had the virtue of feeling restorative, unlike the cold light of day.

Sex Tourism Becomes De Rigueur. Regardless of Destination.

Sam's here for the weekend again. Well, he's here in person, but I'm not at all sure where his head is at. Somewhere in the Isle of Skye, I think - home to his latest internet dating conquest. She has four children. Four - imagine that! I didn't think Sam even liked kids, but he seems pretty determined to try to like hers.

He spends the afternoon making us look at all the photos she's sent him. I can't see most of them as I seem to have picked the one spot where I can't see the computer screen properly, probably because Max has elbowed me out of the way.

He's only supposed to be faking interest out of politeness, but then I catch a glimpse of Shona and realise why he's paying such close attention. I wouldn't have thought you could buy underwear like that out in the wilds of Scotland.

"I'll be seeing that in the flesh next weekend," says Sam.

"Huh," I say. "Not if she's got four children, you won't." Does he know nothing about teenagers?

"They're going to their dad's," says Sam, "So we all know what that means, eh?"

How on earth does Sam think a love affair with someone who lives on Skye is going to last? It'll be almost as daft as Johnny's idea that he and I can carry on a "relationship" while he's still living in Russia. There must be a nice girl nearer to home, who would suit Sam just as well.

Ha! I realise that, if we leave "nice" out of the equation, I have the perfect solution.

"Well, if you don't mind kids part-time," I say, 'why don't you ask Ellen out on a date? Northwick's a hell of a lot nearer to where you live than the bloody Isle of Skye."

This is a cunning plan - devised on the spur of the moment - to kill two birds with one stone. I am such a creative thinker when under pressure. Sometimes.

"I don't like Ellen," says Sam.

"Bugger," I say, at the same time as Max says, "Why on earth not?" The answer to that should be obvious, as far as I'm concerned.

"You said she makes a lot of noise during sex," says Sam. "I can't be doing with all that. Whatever would my lodgers think?"

"Same as me, probably" I say. "That she protests too much."

"Are you questioning my sexual capabilities?" says Sam. Oh, for goodness' sake, now he sounds like Dad, who - coincidentally - phones shortly afterwards.

"I'm thinking of selling the bungalow, Molly," he says. "So I wanted to take your advice first."

"What?" I say. "Why?"

"It's getting too big for me," says Dad. "It's okay at the moment, but when I get older, it's going to become a struggle."

Phew. So he can't be planning on bringing the Thai bride here after all. Dinah's going to be thrilled.

"And I'm a bit short of money with all these trips abroad," says Dad. "By the way, did I tell you I'm going to Thailand again next month?"

"No. How long for this time?"

"Three months, to see how I like living there," says Dad. Christ. I'm not telling Dinah.

"Well, make sure you let Dinah know," I say. "I'm not sure I'm can face it. I'm already worried about my blood pressure."

"You need a holiday," says Dad. "And some excitement in your life. I feel twenty years younger these days."

Good God - is it becoming unacceptable to have a sex life with someone who lives in the same town or city these days? Maybe I should redecorate our bedroom to resemble a hotel room, and buy a mini-bar and some headed stationery if I want to rejuvenate my marriage.

Or perhaps I could persuade Max to drive twenty times round the ring road before he heads for home. Then he could pretend he's off to a secret assignation in a far-flung location, and I could greet him either in a Scottish accent, or by saying "jiggy, jiggy" and swooshing my sarong. I'd have to buy a sarong first, but that's a minor detail.

It seems as if everyone thinks it's normal to travel to find sex, whether to Skye or Pattaya. At this rate, Northwick could even become the top sex tourism destination for International Directors of Global Oil Companies, who knows? Perhaps I count as exotic too - to someone with very short sight, or who has never seen a bearded lady before.

An Epidemic of the Maladjusted....

I have new underwear - lots of it! It doesn't feel great - a bit cheap and scratchy - but as it only has to look acceptable in a photo, who cares? This cheers me up no end, and helps my blood pressure normalise after The Boss gives me a bollocking for "breaching Mr Humphries' confidentiality" by phoning the Police, and then giving a statement when asked to do so! Mr H, meanwhile, is in hospital on a section and hopefully getting some help at last. There is to be an injunction against him returning to the building, so everyone's relieved, except for The Boss, who rants as if he too needs to be sectioned during his phone-call - made from his nice, secure office in Westminster. I wouldn't mind so much, but he's never even met Mr H.

Greg phones James again. His Mum answers and says her son is far too shocked by yesterday's events to ever return to work, and that The Boss should know better than to expose staff to such outrageous risks. I should imagine James'll make doubly sure that any future internship is in the House of Commons, before he accepts it. Maybe he's even been put off politics for good, and will get himself a proper job instead. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Greg has to pack up all James' tea paraphernalia and his bowel medications, and post them back to him. Then he spots the Primark carrier bag on my desk and, before I know it, he's wearing my new lace boxer shorts. On his head. I should be cross, but the sight makes listening to Mr Beales' lengthy phone call oddly bearable. I think I may suggest that cranial knicker wearing is introduced nationwide as a contractual requirement for constituency staff. I'm never going to wear those pants myself now, though.

In the evening, I am in the bathroom, trying to photograph my own arse in the mirror - trickier than it sounds - when I'm interrupted by a phone call from Mum. She says that Dad has been phoning her a lot. What? He hasn't mentioned that to me, but Mum says that he apparently got her number from Connie - who'll tell anyone anything, the idiot. Now what the hell is going on? I like both my biological parents to stay nicely in their separate boxes, along with their matching and various new spouses. It's the bloody least they can do to compensate for making me the insecure maladjusted child of a broken home.

The Significance of Fathers, Underwear, Circles and Spirals. Not Necessarily In That Order.

I bet you can tell a married woman from a single one, just by the state of her underwear. Mine is tragic.  Rather worryingly, this thought occurs to me while I am trying to draft a reply to Johnny's last email - the one in which he mentioned massage.

I'm hoping that he was so distracted by the oil spill that he forgot he was writing to me, and thought he was emailing his wife instead. Now I can't decide whether to mention his suggestion, or to ignore it and, after a few clumsy attempts at a reply, I abandon the idea and phone Dad instead. It is Father's Day, after all - even though Connie seems oblivious to the fact that this does actually apply to Max.

I am in Dad's good books due to being the only one of his many children who has remembered to send a card - or to phone - until the subject of Facebook comes up.  Then he insists that all his young Thai women "friends" are just neighbours.

He gets quite cross when I question the likelihood of this, on the basis that: a) he lives in a really small village, and b) it's in Dorset. Then he says he's not interested in women since Stepmother Mark III left him, so I ring off as quickly as I can and phone Dinah.

"Can you set Dad up with one of your friends' mums?" I ask.

"Why? What's he up to?" says Dinah. (We have a sisterly shorthand which avoids the need for a lot of explanation, which is lucky as she talks so much that I often can't get a word in edgeways.)

"He says he's not interested in women again," I say. "And that the Thai girls are all his neighbours."

"Christ!" says Dinah. "I'll get onto it straightaway. In the meantime, why don't you write something off-putting on his Facebook wall?"

"Like what?"

"Like asking him if his willy's still bendy, for a start," says Dinah.

There is a triumphant tone to her last comment. I wonder if this is how most daughters discuss their fathers?

After all that, together with yesterday's revelations about Chris Huhne - where do the LibDems get all this sexual energy? - I start wondering if Max fantasises about starting all over again with someone new, probably half my age, and also probably from another continent.

Then I decide that I don't want to know if he does, but I'm unsettled for the rest of the afternoon anyway. I keep finding myself staring at him, until he notices and says,

"What's up? Have I got a bogey hanging from my nose or something?"

It's odd how you don't really notice the person you've been married to for aeons, until you start to consider how attractive they might appear to another person. Which brings me right back to the question of my underwear. I seem doomed to spend my life going round and round in circles.

Mind you, this would be preferable to my life spiralling down the plughole, which is how it sometimes feels when I contemplate all the unused gold stars in the kitchen drawer. Now I'm stuck here with Connie for the evening, as Josh is taking Max out "for a Father's Day drink" - at a lap dancing club, for God's sake.

Honestly, is there no end to the pressure? Now I shall probably have to learn to pole dance. Bloody hell.