Why mummy drinks : the diary of an exhausted mum

The smash hit Sunday Times bestseller. Tuesday 8th September First day back at school.

I am going to 100% nail being a school mummy this year.

I can totally do this. Yes, this year is definitely going to be much better - I am absolutely not going to shout at the children, let them stuff their faces with crisps or goggle away on the iPad. And I most certainly will not slump on the sofa at the end of the day, glugging wine and muttering `FML' repeatedly. Unfortunately I have not yet actually managed to buy the bento boxes for their lunches or book jiu jitsu lessons, and I will have to learn to like green tea, as it is foul, and I have not yet mastered French plaits, but I am quietly confident that these are mere details in my grand master plan... It is Mummy's 39th birthday. She is staring down the barrel of a future of people asking if she wants to come to their advanced yoga classes, and polite book clubs where everyone claims to be tiddly after a glass of Pinot Grigio and says things like `Oooh gosh, are you having another glass?' But Mummy does not want to go quietly into that good night of women with sensible haircuts who `live for their children' and stand in the playground trying to trump each other with their offspring's extracurricular activities and achievements, and boasting about their latest holidays. Instead, she clutches a large glass of wine, muttering `FML' over and over again.

Until she remembers the gem of an idea she's had...