Page 79 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

At this Sharon practically spat into the shaved Parmesan and said it was

inhuman to leave a woman hanging in air for two weekends after sex and an
appalling breach of confidence and I should tell him what I think of him.
Hmmm. Anyway. Going to have another little sleep.

2 p.m. Just triumphantly returned from heroic expedition to go downstairs for

newspaper and glass of water. Could feel water flowing like crystal stream into
section of head where most required. Though am not sure, come to think of it, if
water can actually get in your head. Possibly it enters through the bloodstream.
Maybe since hangovers are caused by dehydration water is drawn into the brain
by a form of capillary action.

2.15 p.m. Story in papers about two-year-olds having to take tests to get into
nursery school just made me jump out of skin. Am supposed to be at tea party
for godson Harry's birthday.

6 p.m. Drove at breakneck speed feeling like I was dying, across grey, rain-
sodden London to Magda's, stopping at Waterstone's for birthday gifts. Heart

was sinking at thought of being late and hungover, surrounded by ex-career-girl
mothers and their Competitive Child Rearing. Magda, once a commodity broker,
lies about Harry's age, now, to make him seem more advanced than he is. Even
the conception was cut-throat, with Magda trying to take eight times as much
folic acid and minerals as anyone else. The birth was great. She'd been telling
everyone for months it was going to be a natural childbirth and, ten minutes in,
she cracked and started yelling, 'Give me the drugs, you fat cow.'

Tea party was nightmare scenario: me plus a roomful of power mothers, one
of whom had a four-week-old baby.

'Oh, isn't he sweet?' cooed Sarah de Lisle, then snapped, 'How did he do in his