What a month February was … for a short month it certainly packed a punch.

As you may recall we were in a ‘situation’ with Erica the Polish housekeeper, who was pregnant and claiming it was Tony’s child. I had magnanimously allowed her to live, until the child was born, in the converted garage in exchange for the child. Well, really it was only part of the garage as it was just too difficult to rehome all the miscellaneous objects that resided in the garage and as it was only for a few months I could not really see any justification in making a huge effort to spring clean in winter or clutter up the guest bedrooms. Plus there was the issue that I was supposed to be improvising that I was pregnant, to assume maternal rights to the baby when it arrived, so I shouldn’t be exerting myself in my condition.

So you can imagine my surprise one Tuesday afternoon early in February when I came downstairs and skidded across the dining room floor and when I looked down there was Erica on her hands and knees in a pool of water. I explained to her in my best Pol-English that she didn’t need to scrub the floors again, that once a day was fine. At this point she let out a spine curdling scream and gripped her enormous stomach and it dawned on me that it possibly was not water that I had skidded on but birthing fluid. I was horrified at the thought that my suede Prada mules might be ruined.

While Erica mopped up the mess she’d made, I frantically rang Tony whilst simultaneously counting on my fingers the number of months between June and early February, and it definitely didn’t count nine … only seven. The day she arrived carrying a bin liner filled with clothes, a pillow and one of those hideous carved giraffes to move into the garage room was the first time I got to lay eyes on her in close proximity. At the time I did think that she was incredibly large for her ‘situation’ but as I hadn’t known her before, I just assumed that she had a natural disposition to being a big girl before the pregnancy and what with all that potato and cabbage, who could blame a Polish girl if she did carry a few extra kilos.

Anyway, before you knew it Tony arrived home and we all piled into the car and were heading for Vélez Málaga hospital. Well it became incredibly clear, quite quickly on arrival that the birthing ward wasn’t a place for me. Its cold sterile atmosphere with the agonizing screams of women echoing through the corridors made me feel like I was living in a horror movie. Besides only one person was allowed in the room with her and I hardly knew the girl so I retired to the cafeteria which has the good grace to be stocked with a full bar and a tasty selection of sexy young doctors.

After what seemed like an eon and I had exhausted all imaginable avenues of entertainment by writing lists on napkins of what I wanted for my birthday and Christmas, and after I had nearly drained the better part of a bottle of vodka, one of those smart young doctors dressed in those cute cotton pajamas flashed a pack of cards at me and babbled something at me, so in my bestest Spanglish I clapped my hands in glee and said ‘I love Snap’. I swept aside my lists and we knuckled down to play snap. Now talking about knuckles, I am sure it was not my imagination, but the young doctor was lingering a little too long as his hand would gently snap down on my French manicure. In fact I would say it was much more a caress than a snap and I don’t know whether it was the vodka but I was definitely feeling a warm tingling sensation inside, mesmerized by his smoldering dark eyes.

So I nearly jumped out of my skin when Tony touched my shoulder and said ‘let’s go’. I jumped to my feet, clumsily tripping over my handbag as I tried to introduce Tony to my new doctor friend. As I righted myself, the young Spaniard waved as he moved to towards the doorway and to my utter confusion started pushing a cleaning trolley that had been parked at the entrance, off down the corridor. I was confused and babbling as Tony led me towards the door explaining that it was an easy mistake as the cleaners wear green pajamas and the doctors wear white.

As we exited the doors and the chill of a February night hit me, I came to my senses and stopped and asked ‘What happened with the baby?’ Tony quickly responded that it was a boy and he would explain everything when we got home. I thought ‘Urghh a Boy’. I had so hoped for a girl. Now we were definitely going to need a nanny as I couldn’t do little willies and blue is not part of my colour chart. But then I remembered that I had read an article that said the mother and child needed to bond immediately after the birth. So I insisted that we went back in so that I could see the child and bond. After a great deal of resistance Tony finally relented and we went to visit the boy.

Well I got the shock of my life when we entered the room and I peered into the crib, the child was black. I looked up to Erica who was looking a pasty pale shade of grey but you could see there was no indigenous blood there and I knew my Tony came from a long healthy Anglo Irish lineage so I asked the obvious question ‘Did they mix the babies up when it came out?’ Erica immediately burst into tears muttering in Pol-English ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ and Tony took me aside to explain.

It appears that one sunny afternoon in April last year, Erica was feeling homesick and went to the beach to cheer herself up. She was sitting, quietly minding her own business when along came this large African man selling sarongs and trinkets. Tucked under his arm was a carved giraffe which instantly reminded her of home. I know what you are thinking… giraffes aren’t native to Poland, but it reminded her of an old uncle who had a similar carved giraffe, which he had bought on holiday in Benalmadena many years earlier, before the family fell on hard times. Anyway she decided that she had to have the giraffe, but being strapped for cash, as she had sent all her wages home to the family, she and the African gentleman negotiated a fair price using the ‘old souk system’… and Erica got her giraffe…. And now it seems, a little more.

Anyway, the up shot was that as the child was not Tony’s and clearly didn’t look like us, it was impossible for us to keep the baby. Feeling sorry for the little tyke, Tony decided to pay for Erica and the baby to go back to Poland. In need of a little rest ourselves after our traumatic experience we headed for Paris for Tony’s 50th birthday to celebrate and check out the new season shopping and replace my ruined Prada mules.

I have to run now so I will tell you next month about the invasion of my pool by the ‘Weight Watchers’ club but in the meantime if anyone knows the man in the yellow swimming trunks can you please tell him that lane number 4 is mine! And that I will have him up on sexual harassment charges if he doesn’t stop trying to touch me when he swims past me.

Gabby Bridge