It’s a well known fact of life that sometimes, it’s shite. Often I’ll ask my mother how her day was, and the answer will be a shrug of the shoulders, a puff of her vape and a dismissive, “Oh, you know how it is: same shite, different day.”

Now we’re only three days into this week, and I’m feeling a more ‘different shite, different day’ theme emerging. It’s pivotal day of the week today – hump day – and I am ever so glad to see it. It’s not that anything has been especially bad, but still…

Let’s start at the beginning of the week: Monday. I wake up early, complete admin tasks, including, crucially, pay for my car to be parked for just over two hours outside my house. The ticket ends at 10.18 am. Meanwhile, I take myself and Betty off to what is potentially the most miserable building I have yet encountered: the Kensington and Chelsea council building. I heard on her ‘Desert Island Discs’ interview that Ruth Jones of ‘Gavin and Stacey’ and ‘Stella’ fame once worked there as a clerical assistant, before deciding that she had to leave London, her dreams of ‘making it’ shattered. No wonder. Ruth, having been there myself, it’s a testament to your character that you emerged with your sense of humour even remotely intact.

Readers, if ever you are in need of a parking permit from the council, do not take your dog with you. This was my first mistake. Dogs are not allowed. You can, however, tie up your dog outside and wait in the cold for your appointment as every time you try to leave your dog you must listen to it howling and the howling echoing through the courtyard. Of course, this is preferable to walking half an hour home to deposit your dog before making a return trip.

Secondly, you need a form. And you must select the correct form from the wall. If you pass this test, you may or may not be given assistance to fill it in. Credit where it’s due, frosty as she was at first contact, ‘Deborah’ was helpful. In the end.

After over an hour of my time and a year off my life, I returned home. Actually, let me rephrase that. I ran home. I turned the corner at 10.12, just in time to attach my lovely sticky parking permit onto my probably equally sticky windscreen- this time through dirt. Only, when I approached my car, I noticed a fine. A parking fine. ‘How can this be?’ I thought. With some expletives thrown in. I’ll tell you how: as I shut the door, my ticket fluttered across the windscreen and landed the wrong way up.

Let’s skip yesterday. It wasn’t especially anything and to be fair. I did have an epic failure in the resolutions department as I found myself eating kale, but the worst of it was probably just the snivellers on the tube. Whilst I hate snivelling folk on the tube as I can virtually see bacteria flying through the air towards me and into my system, if I’m going to get the hang of working life in this big old ‘ole then I shall just have to learn to fend them off. Or at least close my ears to the snivells.

Today, I am facing shite of a whole different kind. It’s the longest that I have ever left Betty, and as I walked home, I felt a growing sense of dread. Obviously I couldn’t wait to have a cuddle – she’s always a champion cuddler – but I felt convinced that I would come home to an accident of the toilety sort. And so begins my dilemma. This morning, despite a forty-five minute wonder around the vicinity and no less than five wee-wee stops, she was not forthcoming with any poops. It’s not that I especially want to get out the bags and face a steamy mess before sunrise but it sure beats coming home to a surprise in the evening is my logic.

As anticipated, she greeted me gleefully at the door, but with a mixture of relief and mild surprise, I found no accident. Not behind the sofa, not beside the bed, not in the kitchen… You get my drift. An hour of walking later, there’s still no poop. Zilch. So now I’m getting a little concerned. She has been known to wake me in the night for a quick trip outside for a swift one so that could happen. Truthfully, though, I think I prefer that option to her being bunged up so I have given her half a jam doughnut thinking that should get things moving. Sugary-chops herself doesn’t seem too perturbed but then again, she never is. Perhaps it’s time Rhys took over doggie duties for a few days! Then again, at least that sort of shite I can scoop into a bag and bin. The £80 fine, on the other hand…