Exhaling through gritted teeth, I surveyed the kitchen floor, which was now covered in splinters of pale wood – miniature utensils and tiny saucepans scattered in between. With a flicker of annoyance, I reached for the broom; I had spent two hours on Christmas morning assembling that toy kitchen set and now it was smashed to smithereens.
My daughters, then one and three, stood in silence by the dining table and guilt engulfed me like flames. “Mama, your leg is bleeding,” said my three-year-old. I looked down to where a splinter was sticking out of my right shin. I don’t know what had triggered that moment of rage, all I can remember is scrabbling around for things to throw: sticky tape, a slightly mouldy satsuma, and then spotting the kitchen set, raising it high above my head and hurling it to the floor, so hard that a tile had broken. What I do remember is that the impact was delicious, all my pent-up tension freed in an instant.
