Why Mummy Drinks

By Gill Sims

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…