A Speedy Recovery, After A Glimpse Of The Afterlife

God, I'm knackered, and it shows. I've aged ten years in the last week - unlike Dad, who appeared ten years younger by the time I left him in order to return home for a night off. Or, at least, he did until Dinah arrived with her kids to take over from me. Then he didn't look half so full of beans.

"God's sake, Molly," he said. "Don't leave me with them. Damian will be the death of me."

"Seeing as you've just had a pretty thorough MOT," I said, "I don't think that's very likely. And stop calling Jake Damian. Dinah'll hear you."

"Just have a sneaky look underneath his hair before you go," said Dad. "I'm bloody sure you'll find 666 there somewhere."

Honestly, talk about being back to his old self - you'd never believe he's just had a triple heart bypass. The first thing he did when he came round from the operation was to ask how long it'd be before he could fly to Thailand to see his girlfriend. I've never been so embarrassed in my life.

I did feel a bit sorry for him the next morning, though. He looked awfully pale when I arrived at the hospital, so I thought something must have gone wrong during the night.

"What's the matter, Dad?" I said. "You don't look too good today."

"That's because I had a near-death experience," he said. "When I went for a pee."

I couldn't see what that had to do with a heart bypass, unless the surgeon had decided to straighten Dad's willy at the same time, but apparently there was a link, albeit a pretty tangential one.

"Your father decided to walk to the toilet by himself, without asking anyone for help," said the nurse. "Because - apparently - no self-respecting man would use a bedpan. But then when he got there, he became a bit disorientated by the painkillers and had to ring for help."

"I thought I might have died, and that I was in the afterlife," said Dad. "Which was a very disappointing prospect. You'd think Paradise would be better than Thailand, not just some bleak tiled room no bigger than a broom cupboard."

Which must have been very frightening, when you come to think of it; though Dad says it wasn't half as bad as the night before his operation.

"Jee-sus," he said. "That's when I was really scared. I had to ask for Valium to calm me down."

"Well, I told you not to google what the surgeon was going to do to you," I said. "But you wouldn't bloody listen."

Dad muttered something about knowledge being power, though God knows how I managed to refrain from pointing out that, as he was going to be out cold during the operation, it was hardly going to be of any use to anyone that he'd watched the entire procedure on YouTube - even if he had counted exactly how many ribs would have to be broken to get to his heart.

This silver surfing business is a health hazard in itself, as is taking care of those who will insist on doing it and then sharing the results with others - repeatedly, and in butt-clenching detail. If Dad so much as even tries to tell me what was done to him again tomorrow, it'll be me who has the bloody heart attack.

A Radical Removal Of Hair. Painless And Effective, If A Little Uncontrollable.

I have decided to do something about all this facial hair. As I can't afford to go to a beauty salon, and can't see well enough to wield tweezers with any degree of accuracy, I have opted for a different solution. A springy wand thing, called a Tweeze-ease or something like that.

It's hideous, like a small, super-thin Slinky with two lurid plastic end pieces - think Ann Summers - and I have no idea how it's supposed to work. This doesn't faze me, though: don't forget I have research skills at least as good as Carlotta's.

I can't do anything about it while there are other people in the house, though. You have to make an effort to retain some mystery, after all - so I wait for Sam and Max to leave for the pub at lunchtime, then find an instruction video on YouTube and start watching it. Luckily, Josh has already left for work, so he can't suddenly walk in and start taking the p*ss either. Or filming me for another episode of "24......Minutes."

I discover that the wand is based on the principle of threading. Which I also have no idea how to do. But there's no substitute for learning on the job, so I get on with it, regardless. An hour later, my face is as bald as a baby's bottom. Somewhat surprisingly, this proves not to be an entirely good thing.

In retrospect, I don't think your face is supposed to be completely hairless. It feels very odd indeed and I definitely shouldn't have tried to use the wand between my eyebrows. Now I look astonished, probably at the fact that one eyebrow is only half as long as the other. And I seem to be developing blotches all over the place.

It'd be just my luck to be allergic to nickel - would serve me right for being too mean to pay for the genuine Epicare wand, which I think is made of stainless steel, and costs about £12.00. Instead - and in the spirit of economy - I opted for a half-priced imitation from eBay, which was no doubt made in a Chinese sweatshop from a metal composite with a higher than average lead content. I'll probably get blood poisoning to go with the blotches.

There's another downside too, in that my wrinkles seem a lot deeper now that they have lost their camouflage of hair, but hopefully Max will fail to notice this. At least when he next strokes my face, I won't have to bat his hand away like I usually do - in case he goes against the direction of hair growth, recoils in horror and says, "What on earth is that?"

So much for optimism. When Max and Sam stagger back in from the pub, they drop like drunken stones onto the sofa, which is already close to collapse. I wish I could get someone to fix that! Maybe I should ask Mrs Bloom to persuade Max that this too is an emergency. When I unwisely mention this brilliant idea, Max glares at me. Then his (bloodshot) eyes widen.

"What the hell's the matter with your face?" he says."You got measles or something?"

I give up. I really do. Men have no idea how lucky they are that they are supposed to have facial hair. Not only are they spared all this faffing about, but it also hides a multitude of sins. I'm sure Max's jowls would look much worse than mine, if only his designer stubble didn't disguise them.

Even the names for male characteristics sound better than women's. Designer stubble versus excess facial hair. Which would you opt for? At the risk of sounding like Connie, life is very unfair sometimes.