I've been stretched very tight over the past couple of weeks. Wound up like the elastic band on a toyshop paper aeroplane, twisted and twisted until I was ready to spin out of control and fly off into an almighty rage.

Usually, I'm very relaxed and easy-going, but every woman has her limits, and last week I reached mine. It all started with so much promise. You would have thought that an hour spent in the company of the divine Mr. Jeremy Vine would be relaxing and fun, and indeed it was, but what followed was as unpleasant as it was unexpected, and proved a salutary lesson in the downside of increased media exposure. I suppose I was riding for a fall, but I was unprepared for the venom and spite that lay in store for me at the hands of a few geeky shut-ins, who use the BBC message board as a vehicle for their blistering bile.

I'm not going to justify their existence by elaborating further, but suffice to say that I was ready for my kickboxing class on Monday. I went to rid myself of all the tension; I went to work out my anger; I went ready for a fight. The partner I chose looked like the human equivalent of a Staffordshire bull terrier. He was short, stocky and all muscle, and as he hadn't been to the class before, I had the job of easing him in gently - only there was no easing to be done.

As soon as he'd raised his focus pads, I let rip. It was supposed to be an easy exercise, relaxed and gentle, but I was punching out my anger and frustration; and even though my opponent's pads remained rock steady, he was clearly relieved when it was over. By the end of the first exercise I had exerted myself so much that I was sucking in air like a neglected fairground goldfish; but I went at it, again, and again. And when the class was over, my partner leaned over and said, 'My God, you've got such a hard punch, I hope I never meet you in a fight.' Well, of course he never will, because I'm not likely to raise my fists to anyone in anger, I'd much rather use my wit to disarm an opponent. But sometimes you have no way of defending yourself against merciless attackers, and sometimes, when the right to reply is denied you, there has to be a way to right the wrong. So in my head I was pummelling the faceless woman who'd unleashed a tireless barrage of spite against me, and in my head I was knocking the ill-fitting dentures out of the mouth of the man who'd declared me vacuous and beyond contempt. And I walked out of the class feeling so much better. The tension has left me, and I won't think about it any more.

I had the job of removing a sofa last weekend. I unbolted the sofa bed mechanism and took it out to the barn, but the sofa carcass proved to be more of a problem. It was too long for me to manoeuvre through the house myself, and I didn't want to trouble anyone by asking for help, so I heaved it out of the back door and left it there. The back of my house is overlooked by a good part of the village, and I'm not sure what they thought of an old sofa suddenly making an appearance in my back yard. But there is sat, day in, day out, neglected, unloved and damp, in the cold, May drizzle. And whilst it was there I began to get some strange urges. I woke up wanting to put my hair in a high ponytail, and started longing for a German Shepherd called Sabre. I toyed with the idea of dragging my cooker out to join the rotting sofa, but it's not that easy with an Aga. By the end of the week I had grown quite fond of the sight of the old sofa sitting in the rain outside, and I was expecting a call from the Parish council to complain about the fact that I was wilfully blighting a conservation area with my unloved soft furnishings. But when the rain stopped and I had a spare Sunday morning, I decided to do what every self-respecting responsible citizen should do with surplus furniture that needs to go to the tip. I went at it with a chainsaw.

With Rosie and Alice standing by, I took my trusty chainsaw and cut the sofa into manageable chunks, which could be fitted easily into the back of my car for a journey to the tip. I filled the car with bits of sofa, but by the time the car was loaded, there was no room for Rosie, and she was desperate to accompany me on what she saw as a great adventure. In the end, she managed to squeeze herself into a tiny space in the footwell, underneath a huge cardboard box filled with tat. I set off, telling her she was a bit like the subject of a Gwen Stefani song called, 'Trapped in a Box', and then, as I was driving, a small hand suddenly appeared from beneath the box, and began feeling for the CD controls. Using touch alone, Rosie found the right CD and then the right track. It's amazing how children can memorise the exact location of every track in a 6 CD autochanger, and yet have no idea where they've left their school shoes.

That old sofa served us well, but it was tired and past its best. I found myself bored one Sunday before Easter, and decided to take my girls for a stroll around DFS, which is know in out house as the Disgusting Furniture Store. I wasn't expecting to see anything I liked, but then I saw the perfect sofa, the only nice sofa in the whole store. A quick chat with a salesperson and the deal was done. I don't have to pay for it for a year, and it's perfect for the three of us to sit on and watch television. Whilst I was filling out forms, Rosie and Alice went and lounged on one of the less attractive sofas. Well, calling it a sofa doesn't really do it justice, so I'll call it a relaxation environment. It was huge, and when I say huge, I mean that you could lose the vicar, your change, the local W.I. group and an Anne Summers party down the back of it and never know. I saw people looking at it, and thought, 'How big is your house?' My sitting room is pretty big, but that monster wouldn't even have fitted into the barn. Perhaps it was designed for an outdoor living environment. Perhaps it is the first sofa actually designed for leaving out in the back yard.

I was tired at the end of last week, and my girls could see how tense I was, so when I said that I was going up to have a bath, Rosie stopped me and said, 'I'll run it for you, mummy.' A while later she led me to the foot of the stairs, and there I saw a trail of cherry blossom leading up to the landing; she'd put on a Joss Stone CD and the trail of blossom led into the bathroom, to where she'd run a bubble bath, lit candles and scatted more blossom into the bathwater. On my bed was a heart laid out in blossom, and a note from little Alice, with a drawing of Charlie, and the words, 'I love you Katie. I love you up to the sky and back again. I'm finding clues in my detective jacket to find you a new husband.'

Now, people can say what they like about me, and write what they like about me, but they can't hurt me when I am surrounded by the love of my darling girls. My girls and I have survived so much together; their love gives me strength and their love gives me hope. And when you have walked up a blossom-strewn staircase, you know that purity and love will always triumph over spitefulness and hate.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.