HRH Robyn of Fantasia

Beneath the veneer of bitterness and sarcasm that makes up my outer shell lurks a shameless romantic and starry-eyed believer in happy endings. As a little girl, I not only wanted to be a princess but couldn’t quite imagine any other fate befalling my adult life. I wasn’t entirely sure which princes were available to me, nor did I have a particular preference either way (I was nothing if not pragmatic; it’s good to keep one’s options open) but I spent hours practicing my royal wave and drew up several versions of the speech I would give to my loyal subjects. As I carefully sketched out a selection of wedding gowns with ever-increasing petticoats, my dress swung from mildly spectacular to necessitating its own postcode.

I understood that the road to my future royal happiness would not be easy. I knew I would find myself enduring complications including enchantments, battles, evil step-relations and the occasional power-hungry sorcerer. I was prepared for this. Not for nothing had I scrutinised my Disney videos, bumper book of Hans Christian Anderson fairytales and focused with rapt attention upon the occasional cheerful interlude from the Brothers Grimm. My English teacher had long noted my overactive imagination (positively or negatively, depending on whether it was me or my parents interpreting the carefully-worded reports) and I put it to good use creating scenarios in which my prince and I would meet and fall in love, usually instantaneously. The general chit-chat of courtship was skimmed over, the practicalities brushed aside; nasty bits like kissing and stuff were inevitably brief. The dress, flowers, bridesmaids, global media attention . . . the happily ever after . . . these were the focus of my daydreams.

It took me the best part of two decades to appreciate that these dreams and aspirations were, perhaps, a little on the unrealistic side. Princesses don’t generally swear or do tequila body shots. They wear beige twinsets and nude kitten heels, not turquoise ballet pumps with purple tights. It’s not common for them to do a Sunday morning walk of shame through Clapham Junction whilst smeared in gold glitter. They can’t spend a week at Glastonbury or take the tube. They aren’t allowed to dance on a table or go skinny-dipping or flash their bra (deliberately or otherwise). The more I thought about it, the more I realised that actually, I wouldn’t make a particularly good princess. It’s hard work to be married to a prince; far harder than we romantics might ever imagine, especially if you’re what my mother kindly terms “eccentric”. It’ll be a tough man who ever asks me to marry him, should that mystical day arrive . . . a tough man with a character to match my own and ideally without a thousand years of family tradition to which he expects me to adapt.

And then I saw the wedding. And Kate looked so beautiful . . . and Wills so happy . . . and they still managed a cheeky smile and a wedding car bedecked with balloons and cans . . . and above all, a commoner marrying a prince. And suddenly, it was as if the long and painfully-installed understanding of reality was wiped from my joyful, idealistic, romance-saturated, utterly besotted mind. I’m pretty sure the only way this story will end is with me tying the knot to a member of royalty, dressed in an Alexander McQueen frock (or possibly Vivienne Westwood; equally British, after all, but a little heavier on the ribbons and sequins). Yup, it turns out it’s not so unrealistic a fantasy after all.

Plus, I’m pretty sure Harry doesn’t have a problem with party girls.

Anyone fancy a trip to Boujis?

Eight-legged harbingers of doom

Approximately level with my nose, the spider hung delicately from a thread and swung obnoxiously close to my sleep-deprived face. Our bathroom appears to be a haven for these foul representatives of Hell and it sucks to be them, because the walls are white, manifestations immediately noted and a watery death mere millimetres away.

My standard reaction to such regular appearances varies wildly depending on my caffeine intake, company and state of undress. The buggers usually time their appearances to perfection, scuttling across the floor at the precise moment that I am struggling into a pair of tights, balanced precariously on one foot in the centre of their intended trajectory.

This morning, however, I was fully clothed, albeit with a mouth full of Colgate Total. With brush clamped firmly between my molars and unblinking stare fixed upon his grotesque form, I stepped slowly to the loo roll, tore off a double piece, folded it to the perfect size and returned to my uninvited guest. His leg twitched. So did mine. We eyed each other warily; me brandishing my flimsy shield of paper, he secure in his unimpeachable ability to leap up and kill me on the spot with the sheer force of his existence.

It was a stand-off.

But one of us had to win.

I clenched my tissue – bringer of death and destruction to all who dare disrupt my early-morning ablutions – and brought my omnipotent hand down towards his defenceless body. And as I did . . . I stopped.

I stood back. I couldn’t do it. What in the name of Darwin had befallen my remorseless insect-slaying self?

As if in a trance, I wandered into my bedroom, retrieved a piece of card, returned to the bloodless bathroom and allowed the little critter to pick his way gently on to my tenderly-offered vessel of liberation. I prised open the window and shook him free, gazing serenely as he tumbled onto the sill below and vanished between two bricks into the safety of the wall.

What had caused this sudden, dramatic change of heart? Was it an understanding of who did, in fact, hold the upper hand in this struggle for domination? An unexpected surge of zen? A peace-loving streak emerging from deep inside my inner hippy?

In actual fact it was because it had occurred to me that this creature was nothing less than a money spider. And being, as I am, mid-quest for a mortgage, I reached the obvious conclusion that to murder an emblem of the much-needed filthy lucre would be nothing short of certifiable. And so for that reason, and that reason alone, I spared his life. His filthy, terrifying, money-spinning, gold-coated, economically viable little life.

But let’s just say it was the zen.