Another day, another hangover. I need to get a grip. I also need to put a lock on my office door. I put the toddler’s rocking horse against it yesterday, in a desperate attempt to get some quiet (and maybe even some work done), but, between them, my unruly children knocked the thing flying, and now both the ears have snapped off.

So I am back once again in the British Library, a haven of peace where no child can reach me. Not to complain about the lack of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for tea; not to demand that I test them on the capital cities of Europe (in French); and not, in the case of the toddler, to hand me, one by one, 289 small pieces of lavatory paper.

Ah, the British Library. What would we overpartied, child-laden homeworkers do without it? Actually, it’s one of the few institutions in this slightly annoying country for which I feel not even the slightest resentment at handing over my hard-earned income tax. Or, at least, it was – until this afternoon.

For, today, I discovered the library’s vast entrance hall and adjoining coffee bars had been wired up with an extravagant sound system, blasting from which were the sickly groans of what sounded like ancient, broken plumbing. I thought the building was collapsing when I walked in. Honestly.

Then, beside the escalators, I spotted six T-shirted blokes (male and female) slouching round a table, looking as ostentatiously boring as it is possible to look – like a panel for a late-night arts review show. Their mouths were only slightly open, their faces completely expressionless; there were microphones in front of each, and gaggles of crosslegged youngsters at their feet, looking earnest. Which led me to assume that the noises echoing around the hall could only have originated from them.

Through the grating sound and the accompanying pain in my head, I managed to ask a man handing out leaflets what the show was all about. “It’s Stockhausen,” he said, with the sort of confident flourish that left me no choice but to nod wisely, as if I knew what he was talking about.

Free performances of broken plumbing systems are the sort of thing, I suppose, that Mayor Ken and the guidebooks would claim make London such an exciting place. Maybe so – for other people. Good for them. But where are we worker ants with hangovers supposed to get our typing done?

Apart from the noise, mind you, I must admit to having almost nothing to complain about. Which is unusual. Indeed, I am growing disconcertingly accustomed to life without my glamorous husband beside me. He is working abroad at the moment, as he often does, and is due to stay working abroad right the way through this festive party season, until Christmas.

I begin to wonder what Bridget Jones was whining about. I can smoke in the house. I can leave my bike in the hall. I can turn the heating up to 25. I can wear my ugly Ugg boots all day, every day. I can walk through my front door laden with expensive shopping bags and nobody will turn a hair. It’s like being 20 again. Better, even. Because, after a day’s unmonitored shopping and an evening’s unmonitored merriment, I can still (more or less) afford to take a taxi home.

Must be careful, though. It’s easy to see how these things can slide out of control. I seem to be waking up feeling the worse for wear most days, and it’s not even December yet. My single friends – most of whom, now I think about it, veer between all-out alcoholism and evangelical, lemon-drinking detoxification – assure me that solitary life is peppered with such “rickety periods”, and that I shouldn’t worry. So I won’t. Yet.

The Desperate Diary of a Country Housewife (HarperCollins £10.99) is available for £9.89 (inc p&p) from The Sunday Times BooksFirst; 0870 165 8585, timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst

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