Jo Rooks

“Were the women of Trinity Avenue control freaks? Is that a serious question? Because we pulled together as a community to prevent crime? No, no, I know you didn’t mean to offend. Let me answer your question this way: if a control freak gets up every morning to dress and feed her children (herself too, if she’s really on form), take them to school and head straight to the station to cram onto a commuter train to Victoria and then a tube to the West End; if, after working a full-on day, she then comes home and gets on with the kids’ reading, bath-and-bedtime routine (sometimes still with her coat on for the first part), segueing seamlessly into making dinner while unloading and reloading the dishwasher, her email open on the iPad on the counter or, every now and then, a friend propped nearby with a glass of wine because it’s so hard to catch up any other time, even though she gamely signs up for book groups and residents’ association and, yes, meetings with community police officers; if she finishes the evening by making the kids’ packed lunches for the next day and sorting out the recycling and putting the laundry on and ordering groceries online or birthday presents or whatever else needs finding or replacing that day; if she climbs into bed thinking her greatest achievement of the day has been not to scream at her children, not argue with her colleagues, not divorce her husband… If that’s what a control freak does, then yes, I was one.”
― Louise Candlish, Our House