The most important thing to remember, Penny, is that there are many ways of being a whole and fulfilled woman and that Motherhood is only one of them. It just happens to be the most beautiful, enriching, instinctive and necessary thing that a woman can do and is entirely the reason that I feel I was put upon this earth. That’s all.

However, as I say, despite remaining resolutely unobsessed, I do not intend to give up without a fight. Five years is too long and I have decided that after two more periods I’ll seek medical help. Sam doesn’t like this idea much. He says that it’s a matter of psychology, claiming that whilst at the moment we can still see ourselves as simply unlucky, if we go to a doctor we’ll be admitting that we are actually infertile and from that point on we’ll be forever sad. Of course the real reason that Sam doesn’t want to go to a doctor is because it’s the first step on a road that will almost certainly lead to him having to masturbate in National Health Service semen collection rooms. However, we’re going to do it, so T-F-B, mate, too flipping bad.

This really is very depressing.

And to think that I had dreams of being a writer. Oh well, at least this sorry exercise serves the purpose of shattering for all time any remaining illusions I might have had about possessing even a modicum of creative talent. If I can’t even write a letter to myself, then scintillating screenplays and brilliantly innovative television serials at the very cutting edge of the Zeitgeist are likely to be somewhat beyond my grasp.

Oh good, she’s finally stopped.

So what I’ll do is I’ll just carry on writing this sentence I’m writing now for a moment or two longer… so that it doesn’t look like I stopped just because she did… Ho hum, dumdy dum… What can I say? Saturday tomorrow, going to see George and Melinda plus offspring.

Brilliant, Sam. Give the boy a Pulitzer Prize. That’s it, finito.