Countdown to 30

05.00: (yes, my day starts ridiculously early) Pack bag for gym. Waste half an hour on fruitless search for tit tape to wear with new dress. (Birthday is actually tomorrow, but will be taking day off work, so am celebrating with colleagues (ie milking attention) today.) Bought tit tape 6 weeks ago, feeling v smug at time at own supreme organisational skills. Have hidden tit tape in such a cunning hiding place that have bloody forgotten where I put it. Great – will have to go braless (SO not a good look with 30 year old drooping boobs)

08.00: Buy coffee from Prêt on way to office. Promptly spill half of it down new dress

08.15: Enter office. Hair has frizzed up into unflattering bouffant disaster

08.16: Catch sight of self in mirror. New over-the-knee socks with ribbon do not go with dress and are inappropriate for office. Get disapproving stares in lift.

08.20: Remove socks. Shit. Have not shaved legs for a long time

08.30: Pile of bday cards on desk. Unamused by gags about age. Less amused still by card from my mum containing cryptic but pointed message about hoping I finally achieve good things in my 30s (hope “achievement” does not mean production of grandchild)

08.32: Message from mother reminding me to call grandmother

08.35: Call grandmother (who had forgotten it was my bday). Spend 10 minutes explaining who I am, as she is having her hair done and has removed hearing aid (why answer bloody phone?!). She wishes me happy bday, then launches into lecture about how I must buy flat as it will radically change my life “because let’s face it, you’ve got nothing at the moment”

09.01: Have received picture of hire care driving in bus lane with penalty charge notice, in internal mail! Throw it in bin. Raaa!

10.30: Assistant has found tit tape! It has turned up in filing cabinet (how did it get there???)

11.15: E mail from EBS No 1 to say she will not be attending my bday party on Sat night. Probing reveals reason is she does not want to (bitch). She also gives me details of facial hair waxing beautician who will sort out my "little problem"

12.01: EBS No 2 e mails me to veto my gift list. She refuses to buy me clothes as she thinks I am “fashion victim” and need to focus on creating “capsule wardrobe” (She had a weekend job in Kookai while at university and thinks that makes her a fashion consultant)

13.00: Buy wheat free, yeast free, soya free, egg free, dairy free, sugar free bday cake to share with colleagues. They eye it dubiously.

14.00: Cake pronounced yummy by bashful colleagues. Lovely colleagues, as they all present me with Topshop vouchers. Hoorah!

15.00: Call best friend N in LA, who has just had baby. Have hour long conversation about her uterus

18.00: Back to gym (in anticipation of bday overindulgence). Drop weight on toe. Toenail promptly turns black. Oh god, hope can still wear wooden wedge platforms tomorrow.

19.30: Bump into friend J on train. Between my usually excessively loud voice, amplified by my blocked left ear, and his equally blocked ears, I end up announcing to entire carriage that I think a mutual friend of ours is gay and is having secret affair with J’s flatmate. Everyone in carriage v. amused. J v worried.

20.30: Meet my mum in Hampstead for dinner. She spends 10 frustrating minutes parking and reparking care, before accusing me of being “too thin” (when last week she smugly informed me that I would never be as thin as EBS No 2), wincing at my neckline (it’s very low”), and hypocritically declining food, instead favouring a peppermint tea, while I gorge myself on edamame

22.30: Male model returns home and taunts me about being old. I begin to hyperventilate and reach for the carton of duty-free Marlboros I bought S last week (she won’t mind). Male Model reminds me that smoking ages your skin. Raaa!

22.45: Call F in a panic. She is v chirpy and merry, being sickeningly well-balanced person (who has had plenty of time to deal with being 30, hahaha), and full of analyses on this week’s Question Time (shit – have missed entire programme). Turn on TV in time for This Week. Great – will see in my 30th Bday watching Michael bloody Portillo

23.15: Call my other friend F to analyse this week’s Grazia Magazine (friend from law school – trust me to find another budding lawyer who is equally obsessed with clothes). We discuss the current furore over Size 0 models and obsess over our weight, diets and exercise regimes, until Male Model walks in again, presents me with a birthday card I have just watched him writing out to me, and embraces me. I am feeling less ecstatic than I possibly should at being embraced by a 23 year old male model. Hmmm.

And so I am 30.