Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries (Bridget Jones 4)

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And there is so much that needs cleaning and polishing. I mean—unbelievable. Everything I look at needs polishing. Filthy! I literally spent all day today cleaning out cupboards till Dad arrived. It was so satisfying.

And the funny thing is, now that I’ve shrunk life down to just me and the baby, it’s so simple and happy. I don’t have to worry about social arrangements or who’s fallen out with whom. Every morning I have coffee and a chocolate croissant at Raouls’ round the corner, and read Buddha’s Little Instruction Book and What to Expect When You’re Expecting and resolve to eat Crossover Foods then go to Pregnancy Yoga and try not to fart. And then I get on with my cupboards and cleaning and have cheesy baked potatoes. And sometimes there’s a Dr. Rawlings’s appointment. She thinks I’m doing very well and says, in her personal opinion, fathers can be a terrible nuisance.

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And, slowly, the friends have all slipped into my routine. Miranda usually comes by with some breakfast on Sundays, on her way back from a club, sometimes with a cute, shag-drunk youth in tow. Tom always comes on Tuesday early evening, because he has a client just near me. And Shazzer comes on Saturday brunch time to rant about whatever the latest outrageous fucking whatever the fuck the fucking thing fucking is.

And Mum has turned her whole campaign round on the basis of inclusivity and got the two gays behind the vicarage on board. Her new thing is to keep dropping into her phone calls, “So modern to have two fathers—I don’t suppose one of them’s black, is he, darling?”

And Magda keeps popping round with baby equipment, which is great. She does keep saying, though: “I just think it’s going to be really hard doing this

on your own down the line, Bridge.” Then she sobs about Jeremy’s infidelities. But it’s fine, because I realize she doesn’t want me to do anything except listen.

Everything’s just so good now, because, as Dad says, “It’s coming from the inside, not the outside.”

THIRTEEN

REALIZATION

MONDAY 29 JANUARY

3 p.m. Right. Completely ready for baby now even though not due for seven weeks. Have finished checking packing again. Is as follows:

3 overnight bags containing clothes, toiletries, tennis balls, etc.

1 set Scrabble

1 set Boggle

1 pack playing cards

1 portable DVD player

Bag containing 5 hardback books, 8 magazines, 2 doz. DVDs

1 laptop

1 iPod

1 stopwatch (for timing contractions)

1 bottle chardonnay (for after birth, obviously)

1 corkscrew

1 box Milk Tray

3 cheesy potatoes

1 bag Popsicles (in freezer) to suck on through pain

I think that’s everything. But it feels like it isn’t everything.

WEDNESDAY 31 JANUARY

9 p.m. Just been reading Buddha’s Little Instruction Book again: