Years since last book: 15; money in the bank: too much to count. 9.15am Funny buzzing in my pocket. Ignore it. 9.20am Knock on the door. It's Talitha, saying she's been texting me. Look blank. "Your phone," she says. So that's what the BUZZING was! Not sure why I capitalised that. Must have a drink. 9.30am Talitha says it's her 60th birthday on May 24th. OMG. That's the same day as the Roxter's 30th. "You can bring your toyboy if you like," she says. 9.45am Agent phones to say my Hedda Gabbler screenplay has been greenlit. 9.50am Having second thoughts about misspelling Hedda Gabler. Editor says it will make me look "just like the old Bridget!" I think it makes me look dim.  Alcohol units drunk: not enough; pages to fill: too many. 8.30am Late getting Billy to school. Mabel has diarrhoea. HELP!!! I do miss Mark. Shame he had to die, but couldn't have written another book if he'd we'd been happy, smug oldly-weds! And going through a messy separation would have made Elizabeth Bennet VERY, VERY cross. Hope she approves of his hero's death. 9.30pm Miranda comes round and says it's time I stopped being boring and had a jolly good shag. Drink three bottles of wine. She finds Leatherjacketman on Slipyoualength.com. 11.30pm Try to stick tongue down Leatherjacketman's throat. Leatherjacketman makes a run for it. WHOOPS!  Weight: miraculously slim; worries about the menopause: none. 9.47am Letter from school. Atticus and Hero have Nits. Really scared. What are Nits? Are they like Aids or something? 11.21am Have discovered Twitter. It's amazeballs. Can't understand why no one laughs at @JonesyBJ. AAAGH! Accidentally twittered "I really fancy the Roxter" to everyone!!! Could die with embarrassment. The Roxter twitters back and asks me on a date. 12.57pm DISASTER!!! Weird Mr Wallaker who lives up the street caught me buying condoms. Gave me a funny look. Especially when I asked which way they went on!!! 11.58pm The Roxter is a dreamboat. Chiselled jaw, six-pack. Mmmmmmm.  Designer dresses bought: 8; style: overwrought. 8.01am No text from the Roxter. Panic. 8.02am Still no text from the Roxter. DOUBLE PANIC!!! 8.03am Text from the Roxter saying he left his phone downstairs, which is why he hadn't texted earlier. PHEW. 10.35am Catch sight of myself in the mirror. Think, "I'm 51 FFS. I'm too old to be writing like a hyperactive ingenue." Phone editor to say wouldn't it more interesting to write something deeper and more reflective about grief and getting old. Feel I have rather more to say about that. Editor says no. "Readers like you just the way you are. But if you want to say you miss Darcy, that's OK." 10.57am I miss Darcy. Don't we all.  Ferraris bought for the Roxter: 3; sense of reality: nearly all gone. 11.09am CATASTROPHE. The NITS are back. Worried they might have hopped on to the Roxter. 12.33pm Have a near-Brazilian! 2.22pm A gnawing sense that the ongoing NIT gag falls flat. Face it. No one gives a toss about them. Editor says all the mums at her daughter's private school are obsessed with them. So NITS stay. 3.51pm Agent calls. Hedda Gabbler screenplay not going to work. How about Madame Ovary instead? Heart sinks. 5.33pm Weird Mr Wallaker gives me a funny look when I ask if he has any moisturiser I could use as my bush is very red after waxing. 9.38pm Just had five – FIVE – shags with the Roxter. He could be the ONE!! "I heart you Jonesy," he texts me while we are in bed. Am beginning to wonder if this relationship is going anywhere.  Bottles of vintage Dom Perignon drunk: 23: advance: banked. 3.28pm GUESS WHAT! Mr Wallaker isn't so weird as I thought. He's my age, single and a bit of a hero like Darcy. 3.29pm Mr Wallaker has moved in!!!!!  Digested read, digested: Bridget's arrested development.
The third volume of the zeitgeist-capturing singleton's diaries is reduced to a neurotic 600 words by John Crace