Adrian Mole: Diary of a Provincial Man

Over-protected

Monday, January 8, 2001, Ashby-de-la-Zouch

I woke at 7.32am with a headache. Thankfully, the boys were still asleep, so I was able to dress and attend to my toilette in peace for once. I did not wash my hair in the shower. The friction caused by the massaging of the shampoo into the scalp is putting a strain on my follicles and causing hair loss. I was pleased to use one of those shower caps, which I have collected from hotel bathrooms over the years.

The reason for my tension headache must be linked to the fact that Pamela Pigg stayed last night. Or, at least, most of the night — she left my bed at 4.30 after sobbing for an hour and a half, incidentally smearing one of my finest pillow slips in blue eye-shadow.

Our date went well considering that Pamela had a heavy cold and kept asking the waiter for more paper serviettes in which to blow her nose. We talked about our on/off relationship, and Pamela blamed our sexual incompatibility for the fact that it was mostly off. She said she was willing to try again, and told me she had forced herself to read The Joy of Sex, and then been astonished at the range of things on offer. She made it sound like the Argos catalogue.

After a protracted argument with the waiter about the bill (I refused to pay £3.50 for the extra services), we left the restaurant arm in arm. In the car on the way home, she placed her right hand over my left. It was difficult changing gear, but I didn't complain.

When we got home, Glenn was still up, doing his humanities homework. He was stuck on one question: "Name three members of the shadow cabinet, apart from William Hague."

Unfortunately, neither me nor Pamela could help him out. When Pamela went to the lavatory, Glenn glanced at her and whispered, "You must be desperate, Dad." In the lull before Pamela's return, I remembered Ann Widdecombe. When Pamela returned, smelling of Poison, and with newly applied pink lipstick, Glenn tactfully withdrew and went to bed.

I put on a Beethoven CD, the 1812, and tried to dim the lights, but the dimmer switch refused to work, so we sat under the glare of 500-watt spotlights. After a little conversation about my mother in prison, we went upstairs. Pamela apologised for her sports bra and utility-type knickers, saying that her best underwear was in the wash. I said it didn't matter, but, in truth, I was very hurt. She had known about our date for over a week. Surely that was enough time in which to hand-wash a few delicate scraps of lace and satin, and dry them on the radiator?

She commented on the fact that the spots on my back had almost cleared up, then turned the bedside light out and lovemaking commenced. The problems began when she requested that, for safety's sake, I wear two condoms, one on top of the other. God knows, I tried, Diary, but by the time I'd got the first fitted, the second had got lost in the bed.

The second problem was that Glenn shouted through the party wall, "For God's sake Dad, 'urry up an' get it over wiv." Which made Pamela roll over to her side of the bed, where she lay with rigid limbs and a set jaw. I tried to relax her by talking about my father's treatment for his hospital-borne infection, but she started to cry. And nothing I said would stop her.

An hour later

Glenn has just come into the kitchen angrily flourishing the used shower cap and shouting, "Tell that Pamela Pigg, to take 'er female condom 'ome wiv 'er in future." The lad obviously knows nothing about the female anatomy.