LET’S TALK ABOUT SEXHow exactly are you supposed to have a rich and varied sex life when you have growing up children?any magazine targeted at our generation, a generation supposedly in its sexual prime, and they advise on nurturing ourselves, our partnerships and our sex lives with the dedicated attention of a diva’s PA. They recommend candles in the bathroom, exotic literature, role-play. Are there really parents of smallish children out there who can manage this? And if there are, please explain to me how they do it? I scan through the pages, taking notes, totting up a list of must-dos to achieve blissful marital sex. - Communication is very important. Talk to your partner, discuss your feelings.
Yes, we did discuss what colour we are going to paint the kitchen for really quite a long time. Does that count? - Show you love each other, be affectionate all the time.
Um, did we kiss goodbye this morning? Can’t remember. - Indulge each other in your fantasies.
OK, that’s enough, I’m bored now. We know all this. It’s like dieting: you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that if you eat less and exercise more you’ll lose weight. It’s the same with sex. If you are spending your life wafting about suggesting cheeky sex at the bus stop with your partner, chances are things are probably going quite well. Let’s say, however, I do try to follow their advice. Aim: to languish in an aromatherapy bath with scented candles after an intimate evening with my partner, having shared a bottle of wine. Plan: to wander half-naked from fragrant bathroom wearing interesting underwear and trailing a turquoise feather boa. (Raucous laughter from anyone who knows me aside – let me run through how it would go.)
Telly and a bottle of wine, a little bit of conversation, much pleasure, comments and wry smiling from partner as he enjoys Jeremy Clarkson. I say I’m going up to get ready for bed, trying to sound alluring. Take some time first to clear abandoned clothes from children’s bath time, empty bath of cool, suspiciously yellow water. Candles have become victims of bath art; they are gouged, drenched and now cannot be lit. Favourite smelly bath stuff bottle has been used as a boat, and is now empty. Try to achieve scent with a squirt of something else, only option being Lynx body spray belonging to Max. Discover that the exotic underwear doesn’t cover up body sufficiently. Try to drape said boa over body to cover simian winter hair growth. Eventually emerge from the bathroom a long time later, feeling steamy. Not, you understand, from sexual desire, just from being poached in hot water and grappling with boa. Get to the landing, severely wound foot on small piece of Lego, trip over boa and encounter small child. “Why are you wearing that, Mummy?” Stumble through to bedroom at last, only to find rest of the family including the cat fast asleep on our bed. The Father of the Children being the loudest of the snorers, closely followed by the cat. Forget it. Decide it’s probably best to leave all this for at least another ten years – possibly on a Saga holiday. Now I understand why those spooky, early-retired folk look so smug. Not only are they cashed up because their children have left home, they are having unbridled, magnificent sex. Their mission: to catch up on twenty lean, unsteamy years. Life in the Slow Lane is written by Clare Kent. She has three children - Max is nearly eleven, Flo is nearly eight and Bobby is six and a half - and lives in Wiltshire.NEXT INSTALMENT: WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBERRead Clare's previous diary Read Clare's next diary
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