The Fear, and not in a Lily Allen way

Its been creeping up on me (as these things tend to, the fuckers) for a few weeks now, but yesterday I got the bigtime fear. It started innocuously enough: I had popped to the deli for some delicious home-made pesto and a perfectly-ripe avocado, paying a mere £90 for the privilege (yes dahling, one lives in Kensal Green), and outside the deli and next door Gracelands cafe I suddenly realised that either I was living in Lilliput, or there were a hell of a lot of children around. Like, obscene amounts. A positive abundance of reproduction, even for here - several couples enjoying a coffee, avec pushchair, at the outside tables; several more wandering about, some accessorising with occupied carseats, others preferring the more relaxed format of sling across body, screaming toddler hanging casually from arm. Three little folk milling around solo, of unspecified ownership: one of these engaged in crawling up the steps of the cafe, ostensibly on its way to the counter to order a decaf mocha and a nappy change. Two of them, not including my own, temporarily residing within the body of an adult female. And that was before we got to pram-pushing stragglers further down the road, anyone in school uniform, or those actually within the shop and cafe. In short: you could rename this place the Baby Square Mile.

It wasn't so much that I realised we were dealing with a major coals to Newcastle scenario here, or even that soon, Jack and I will be similarly unable to leave the house without several appendages of the flailing-limbed creature/pushchair/carseat/mini diary-room chair variety (as one who is accustomed to winging it with a clutch bag and single front door key, its clear that I will shortly be having a rather major wake-up call). Its more than that: I have gone from underbelly to overbelly, I am on course to become one of those people who orders lunch at 11.30 because they've been up since 5am. Worse, I will become a baby bore, indulging in socially sanctioned pastimes rather than stumbling in at 6am with my false eyelashes stuck to my chin. I may even take up religion as a means to getting my little darling into the school of choice, like my friend Annie who combined all nighters with afternoon tea with vicars, and managed to control her shaking hands long enough to pour his Rooibos and proffer a french fancy. And its not like I wasn't aware of this before, its just that yesterday it hit me slap bang in the face like an errant football.

Excuse me, I'm going down the garden to expel a primeval yowl.