Monday 27 March 

Stairs to flat: 57. Chances of getting baby into flat without dropping down stairs: 0. Chances of getting mortgage to buy new flat with no job: 0. Chances of getting new job while sporting bump obviously containing baby: 0 (bad).  

2pm. Electric, Portobello Rd. Ugh. How long is intolerable concrete- skyed, damp wind-flappy weather going to go on? Have come to Electric in middle of day to stave off unsuitable flat/no job depression, (as well as whole Katie Holmes/Tom Cruise silent, drug-free Scientology birth story - which will inevitably lodge in own celebrity-led subconscious and undermine birth experience) only to find air resounding with phlegm-regurgitating chesty coughs. Is as if am on top of Northampton bus, surrounded by old men who've been smoking untipped Capstan Full Strength for 50 years instead of West London boots-in-jeans, sunglasses on head clubberati. Plus, someone has hyperactive mobile phone with ringtone customised as crying baby, adding hint of doctor's waiting room to whole dispiriting aural design-mix. Grrr. Hate people who keep mobile phones on in... oh goody - mobile ringing! 

"Bridget," said breathy voice. "It's Harry." 

Was momentarily baffled. Harry who? Prince Harry? Harry the Hedgehog? Harriet Harman? "Good news on the Richard Finch front." 

Ah. Always forget that youthful office flirt-magnet "Ashton Kutcher" also has real name. 

"He's had a lot of pressure from the team, about, like, sacking you? When you're, you know, expecting? Anyway I think Finch has finally realised it might actually be against the law? and - oh, I'd better, like, go?" 

Mmm. Hate yet love way twenty-somethings phrase everything as question? - perhaps as result of Antipodean backpacking countercultural influences during gap year? Gaah, though! Have just been marvelling at clubberati alertly holding meetings in spite of colds, as if they've been up and on the phone since 8am, and thinking back in bafflement to how much I used to get done in the day when I had a job. As Mum always says: if you want something done, ask a busy person! ie not me - Gaah! Mobile again. 

"Hi, Bridget, It's Patchouli. Richard wants you to come in this afternoon." Then, dramatically changing tone and volume Patchouli hissed in a gabble "don't mention about being sacked: he's panicking it's illegal. Get your arse in here at three and make sure you get the back-pay. Bye." 

Hurrah! Money! Gaah! How in the name of arse am I going to get myself hyped up enough to get on the Tube, let alone re-familiarise self with current affairs and brush hair? 

9pm. My flat. Need not have worried. Finch, apparently, has been on coke-fuelled bender for past six days, maintaining only tenuous grip on world around him. 

"Bridget Jones! There you are!" he said, as if the whole traumatic, baby-impoverishing weeks-long suspension/dismissal had been a mere trip to the coffee machine, and handed me a piece of paper. "Ring up these buggers, will you, and ask if they bought their peerages?" 

"But Richard, that was last..." interrupted Freddo, grasping wits-endedly at his hair. 

"Shut up, Freddo," said Richard, staring at me while chewing frantically, twitching one leg up and down. 

I started reading down the list: Waheed Alli, Lord Melvyn Bragg, Lord Richard Rogers, Sir Ben Kingsley... 

"Sir Ben Kingsley isn't a peer," I pointed out. 

"Yes he is." 

"No, he isn't." 

"He is." 

"He isn't." 

"He is." 

"He isn't." 

I sighed. Had somehow thought that after all this time apart, things might have become a bit more mature between us. "Look, anyway the point is, these people haven'tbought their peerages," I said, looking desperately at the list. "Melvyn Bragg didn't buy his peerage." 

"Ieuw, Ieuw Miss Hoity-Toity Pants. How do you know, if you don't ask him?" 

"Because if he had, he'd have been on the front page of the papers last week instead of all those mad-haired, wrinkly necked men with wire glasses who nobody's heard of." 

"Well maybe the papers were too scared to ask him. Like you." "I'm not too scared to ask him." 

"You are." 

"I'm not." 

"You are." 

"Richard. I am not. Scared. To ask Melvyn Bragg if he bought his peerage." "Well ask him, then," he said, holding out the phone. 

"No," I said sulkily. 

"OK, then," he said, turning back to his list, "What else do we have here?" 

"How about stag weekends?" said Freddo eagerly. "Friend of mind just went on his and they Brokeback Mountained him. Made him climb Scafell dressed in a gold G-string and a pair of leather chaps!" 

"Shut, up, Freddo," said Richard. 

"What about Old People?" I suggested, catching headline on desk out of corner of eye, and experiencing moment of panic, suddenly thinking "what's happened to Granny?" (rather, imagine, as will experience when baby arrives and remember have left him somewhere) before remembering Granny died two years ago. 

"Naaah. That's such a fucking tired old story," snorted Richard. 

"We judge society by the way it treats its elders," said Ashton Kutcher, looking at me so portentously that I suddenly had an awful feeling he might mean me. 

"We are not. 'Avin. Crinkly. Wrinklies. In the studio. All right?" said Richard. "Do you all want to end up Davina-ed with no viewers?" 

There was a shocked silence, during which Patchouli tapped me on the shoulder. "Personnel want to see you," she hissed. 

Upshot of it is, Personnel are going to pay me for the whole time I was supposed to be sacked, which is brilliant because did not hardly spend anything owing to unemployed. So now have enough money to buy pram, bottle steriliser etc. and might even be able to get mortgage and buy flat with less stairs and is fantastic to have job again, even if boss insane... ooh, goody. Telephone. 

9.15pm. Was Daniel, plastered. "Jones," he slurred. "Listen. I've been thinking. Jusss while you're unemployed, all those fucking stairs, you and Junior better come and live with me. Not because I love you or anything. Only till you get another job."