Down time? Remind me what that is again...

The sunlight streams through the floor to ceiling sash window. It warms the cat curled up asleep on my feet. Around me lay the disemboweled remains of the Sunday papers, a glossy supplement laying bare the personal life of a famous actor, the business section counting up and down fortunes. My head lies snug on the lap of my beloved, as he is engrossed in the dubious pleasures of a grand prix on the TV. All is well with the world. 

Perhaps later we might get dressed, go for a late lunch, maybe catch a movie or just while away the evening in a wine bar putting the world to rights. The world is our  oyster and we can spend our own sweet time searching for that pearl of entertainment that will divert us until the working week begins again. 

This was how weekends used to look. They were a chance to rest, unwind and forget about the power struggles and pressing deadlines of the office. There were that precious 48 hours of down time that was so essential to making the five days of toil that interspersed them bearable. 

Since those hedonist days of old, the whole concept of downtime has become increasingly alien to me. From the rude disruption of my quiet weekends wreaked by the eccentric routines of a newborn, to the Saturday afternoons spent freezing in a local park, desultorily pushing a complaining toddler on the swings and trying to catch furtive glances at your phone for just a little distraction from the monotony of the playground. 

But in some ways it hardly mattered as back in the days of little children all my days blended into one blurry mush of childcare. There were a few notable highs to keep one sane; the moments when my children were adorable, funny, cuddly or hilariously astute. For example, the day my little son touched me gently on the arm and said 'Mummy, I know I say you are the most beautiful woman in the world, but you know I don't mean that literally? There are prettier girls, I just don't want to upset you.' What a charmer. 

But essentially one day of Play Dough, CBeebies and the park was much the same as another. 

Since the boys have grown up a little there has been more chance to be self indulgent. Now that they can work the TV on their own pre-dawn weekend mornings can be spent in the land of nod once again. But every time you get settled down to being seriously lazy, it seems to be time to feed them again, or you remember that they have no clean school uniform, or that you really should listen to their violin practise, rather than sneaking in a decadent episode of Suits on Netflix. 

When I was a SAHM this wasn't such a problem, as I could work pockets of down time into my day. Since I worked a seven-day week, I felt it was acceptable to take the occasional half hour off to watch TV with my lunch, or go for a run with a gripping podcast on my headphones. While weekends were no longer luxuriant breaks from the week, there were the odd windows of indulgence to keep me from feeling too hard done by. 

Now that I am a working mother, I think the most bloody sacrifice to this new way of life has been my personal down time. Now I know some working mums say that the commute is their 'me' time. Well I am sorry, but being squeezed under someone's ripe armpit inside an insanely overheated train for an hour each way every day isn't my idea of a little treat. 

Add to which I am usually exhausted because I have had to get up too early or work too late, so my time on the tube is spent in a haze of stressed resentment at my miserable lot, and you don't have the recipe for chilled out relaxation. 

So that leaves the two scant days of the weekend, during which I feel duty bound to spend time with the children who I have seen for about 20 minutes each week day, most of which was taken up by screaming at them to get ready for school or bed. 

But I have a terrible confession to make. I would much rather laze on the sofa with my Kindle, or indeed those Sunday papers, than spend quality time with my children. I don't want cook tea, or tidy up, or deal with their roster of parties and extra curricular activities. I want to be selfish and slothful. I want to drink wine, go for dinner, spend a bit of time just tuning out the world, go for a run at a time that suits me, not their busy timetable. I want throw a snotty-hot-tears, kicking-my-legs-on-the-ground tantrum to demand some me time. 

Just as well that my wages are paying for the boys to have the latest whiz bang gaming console for their birthday, as that means they won't notice whether I am there, or not, or dancing round the room with in the Christmas Pudding nipple tassels I got from Secret Santa and little else. 

Confessions of a working mum

I read a funny Tweet the other day from a fellow parenting writer who said something along the lines of 'Now it's that dreaded time of day when I have to stop writing about the joys of motherhood and actually look after my kids'. Oh how well I know that feeling.

I know us working mothers are meant to feel endlessly guilty for failing to properly nurture our children. Just as breast is best, so a mother's love cannot be replicated by the most capable or loving childcare. Or so the theory goes. I began to feel a little suspicious about this hypothesis back when my children where in the Playdough and finger painting phase. While my nanny actually appeared to take pleasure in sharing these pursuits with them, I found them boring to the point of pain.

I would often sneak upstairs to tap out a blog post or whizz off a pitch leaving them to their own devices, dreading the moment when I would hear that familiar thud, thud, thud as they made their way upstairs to my lair. It's not that I don't love my boys. It's just that I am not sure I was cut out to be a full time mummy, as rather than feel guilt at the requirement to work, I felt nothing less than a joyous sense of release.

Naturally I played this down as it is not the done thing to admit that working was way more fun than running around after a toddler - even when commissions were backwards in coming forwards, or I was forced to make ends meet by writing pious sermons about the benefits about NHS support groups.

Now I know a lot of stay at home mums take this attitude to be somewhat patronising, as if their lifestyle were beneath us high flying (har de har) working mums. Instead I am in awe of anyone who can entertain children all day. Just as I look on in wonderment at downhill ski racers, when I myself can only weep terrified tears as I slither and snowplough down blue slopes, or admire those gifted souls who can coax beautiful melodies from an instrument when I am tone deaf, I recognise that a knack for childcare is a talent and one that I simply do not possess.

For example, I would love to be the kind of mother who enjoys, rather than endures, baking with her children. I love making cakes, but I absolutely hate cooking them with the children. I like my cakes to be things of beauty with smooth icing and colour co-ordinated decoration, with perfect swirls of butter cream and a rice paper daisy placed just so on top. I do not like flat as a pancake fairy cakes, dribbling neon bright glace icing with a thousand smarties dumped on top. It pains me to see what a mess they can make of a cake.

This does not make me a good person. I am well aware of this. I should be passing on my passions so that one day my offspring would credit me with igniting their own burning desire to bake. Instead I try to bake in secret, or save the decorating (the bit I like best) till when they are out. I know I am not alone. One mum admitted to me that she too baked late at night so her children couldn't get their mucky fingers all over her icing.

Another episode that highlighted my lack of aptitude in this sphere was when I spent a rare weekend afternoon on London alone with my husband. We went to the South Bank Centre and as I strolled through the couples stopping for coffee, idly browsing in the bookshop or simply walking unencumbered by small people I had a sudden feeling of being at home. I turned to him and said: 'How is it that after nine years as a mother, I still feel like this is normal life?'

His response was simply to drag me into a nearby pub for an illicit mid-afternoon drink, which reminded me why I love him so much.

A great friend of mine always put me to shame. She would constantly say how impressed she was with me for combining a career (of sorts) with children, flatteringly forgetting that actually I didn't as while I was working the children were being looked after by someone else. Meanwhile she was the kind of mother who would fashion a fantastic birthday party complete with hand painted decorations, thoughtfully chosen going away presents, hand sewn costumes for her children and a knock out home made cake, while actually looking after two small girls. Now that is impressive.

So it was with huge relief that I discovered that my beloved nanny who is a whiz at board games, loves making banana cakes with the kids and endlessly plays hide and seek with them is not leaving me until school can take over where she leaves off. That means I can carry on doing what I am good at, generally wasting time at the keyboard, and she can do what she excels at, looking after my children. Harmony is restored.