This morning I got a bit overexcited and casually sent out a text to everyone I know with children saying: ‘Sun just popped out from behind cloud, fancy coming over to play in Freya’s paddling pool this afternoon?’ thinking it would be great if even two of them replied, let alone came along at such short notice. However within ten minutes I had had seven replies all saying ‘yes’. I was thrown into a panic – that many children almost constitutes a party (in my book), as opposed to a couple of friends just coming round for a cuppa, whilst their little treasures trash the house, and I pretend not to care.

I charged into Joe’s office (he works from home) where he was busy writing some speech for the Chief Exec of an international mining company to be aired the next day in front of some politicians or something, and plonked Freya down. I told him that this was an emergency, and he had to look after her whilst I raced off into town for an hour or so. I explained about the accidental pool party and that I had to buy some important provisions, including some food and drink, and a paddling pool. I then shot out of the front door, leaving Freya gleefully spinning around on Joe’s office chair, and Joe with his head in his hands.

When I returned from my errands, which turned out to be more elaborate than I had planned, Joe and Freya were outside on the vegetable patch, Joe weeding, and Freya pulling up all the little seedlings that Joe had lovingly cultivated over the last couple of months. It was a very touching and wholesome sight, and so I asked Joe if he could keep this little gardening session with Freya going until 3pm when my friends would be arriving, and would witness it. Joe said that with current work deadlines looming unfortunately he couldn’t accommodate my suggestion, and so I let him get back to work on his speech, whilst Freya and I got to work on the garden shed.

We got out the hammock, swing, parasols, sandpit, various ride-on toys, some balls etc, whilst shoving the slug pellets, dead bird, and festering BBQ (with the remains of last week’s dinner still on it) right to the back of the shed. We strategically placed the chosen items all around the garden in an attempt to create an illusion of an idyllic family setting. I quickly whipped up a few sandcastles in the pit, put Freya’s watering can next to the tomato plants, and placed an opened book on the hammock. I scattered some crayons on the rug, next to a piece of paper on which I had quickly drawn some labelled pictures of home-grown vegetables. I placed Cupcake (Freya’s doll) under the shade of the apple tree with a hastily-made daisy-chain slung around her neck.

At this point, Joe appeared in the doorway, clutching a coffee and looking bemused, and said that all this fuss (‘charade’ I think was the word he used) looked suspiciously like PR. I agreed with his assessment, and then disappeared off to pick some wild flowers.

Finally I blew the paddling pool up, but I was very quickly mortified to discover that it was the smallest paddling pool I had ever seen in my life. No wonder it was only £2.49. I reluctantly filled it up with water, which took all of three seconds, and wondered how on earth I was going to explain to eight hot children, who couldn’t yet talk, that they would have to form an orderly queue and go in one at a time.

Everyone arrived and the mums started talking breastfeeding, sleep routines, and toilet habits. At my insistence the discussion did eventually move on to The Apprentice, and Big Brother. Meanwhile the children had a pile-up/punch-up in the pool, and I desperately tried to calm them with some demonstrative toddler teaching ‘This is a RED BALL’ ‘This is a BOAT’. Next the Dolly Field PR machine went into over-drive. “I just haven’t had time to go to the shops, but will go and have a look at what is kicking around in the fridge,” I said in reply to a question that hadn’t been asked. Two minutes later I emerged with a huge bowl of fresh strawberries, a couple of bottles of chilled sparkling wine, some home-made ice-lollies, and some faux-homemade organic flapjacks.

Whilst I pretended to disagree with all the praise about what a wonderfully proactive and organic mummy I was, Freya shot me some very nerve-jangling looks, as if to say ‘I’ve got your card marked woman, just you wait until I can talk’.