Dear Diary. Today is Sunday. Girlfriend and I have started packing in preparation for our trip to Birmingham. I don't think many people pack for trips to Birmingham. People usually pack to get away from Birmingham.

I'm not looking forward to this holiday. It's bad enough being stuck with Girlfriend and the kids every weekend, but now I've got to be with my family as well. For three weeks.

Girlfriend took the kids to visit her mom today. She says her mom has water retention (I didn't even know that was a real thing) and went to a naturopath for advice. The naturopath advised her to eat artichokes and sit in the bath for 15 minutes every day. The only problem is my mother-in-law doesn't have a bath. So she bought a children's paddling for €18 from a local Chinese shop. (Never buy anything from the Chinese shops here in Spain; they're cheap but everything breaks.) She got the paddling pool home and inflated it. Because she doesn't have much space in her apartment, she put it in the shower, even though it didn't fit properly, because the shower is rectangular and the paddling pool was circular. Then this evening, when Girlfriend and the kids went around to visit, the kids saw her paddling pool and naturally wanted to play in it. But Girlfriend accidentally tore the paddling pool when she closed the shower door, and all the water leaked over the floor. Three buckets worth of water. Girlfriend and her mom had to mop it all up.

Tonight, when the kids had gone to bed, Girlfriend put the Olympics on. All she watches is the gymnastics.

"What's the next competition going to be, pooing?" I said. "Is there going to be a sumo wrestler who's been holding in his poo all week, and now he's taken laxatives and it's all going to come out on TV?"