A few feet behind us, a group of 16–17-year-olds had set up camp and put on Stormzy, in my opinion, a bit too loud. While I was holding a squirming Jacob, pleading with him to stop crying and wiping sand from his mouth with a used tissue, “Do Better” was playing.

As my whole body vibrated and bark skimmed into my face, I weighed up the possible scenarios here; best case would be to successfully cut the tree down but annoy everyone on our street. Not great? Would a broken chainsaw but all my limbs remaining be a decent outcome? I sawed the tree for 10 seconds then, considered the worst case, and thought, forget this. Switched it off. Chainsaws are terrifying.

There was plenty more back and forth. At one point, Louise was refusing to reply to “keep him waiting,” a tactic often employed by the girls I texted when I was a teenager. The deal was finally agreed, and the man said he would reluctantly come to our house and pay £20.

“Andy,” Louise said, “I’ve just looked at his profile picture and I don’t want him coming to our house.”

“Why?”

“I think he might kill us.”

In trying to be a helpful husband I made the error of flying in with the motivational mantras — “You can do this! I’m so proud! I love you!” — roughly 28 hours too early and, as I ran out of steam, Louise had to settle for a silent, increasingly feeble back rub and forehead dab as she approached the business end of proceedings.

Within seconds of arriving at the church hall, Louise was animatedly chatting to expectant mothers about due dates and recommended prams. I poured a glass of blackcurrant cordial and exchanged flat smiles with the men.

“So. Babies?”

Creating a wedding playlist is fun for the initial half-hour blitz but going back and reviewing it is a headache. A bit like writing a blog, I suppose. My original playlist had “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar on it, but after deliberation, I decided that the lyrics: “Get the fuck off my dick,” might be unsuitable for a party including guests aged under three and over eighty.

In my bedroom, an extremely pissed man was thrashing chords on my classical guitar using a 2p as his plectrum and a sinister-looking group wearing jogging bottoms were doing cocaine on my bedside table.

“Hi, guys, glad to see you’re having fun but do you mind, perhaps, not doing that in here?”

“Who are you? Fuck off.”

“No thanks to the drugs, but I will take some of your rainbow-coloured rosary beads please, sir.”

One drug dealer took umbrage with my friend, a nice mild-mannered chap, because he rejected his offer of MDMA.

“No? What do you mean no? You are a scumbag!” the drug dealer said. “Scum!”

This seemed harsh and also, can a drug dealer take the moral high ground?

“I’m here for my wife, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m taking one for the team.”

A bald man was telling me this, across a table of five other strangers, at my Speed Awareness Course last Friday. I couldn’t help but think he might be best keeping this information to himself. He had a loud voice and the course leaders were well within earshot.

“What are you here for?” He asked me.

I felt like it was my first day in jail. Should I answer like they do in prison documentaries?

“They say I was doing 48 in a 40 zone.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” I said. “Am I okay to ask you a few questions?”

“Like what?”

“Well, what kind of people do you think this job would appeal to? What should we be looking for?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are some perks of the job that I can tell candidates about?”

“There aren’t any.”

After short auditions, Michael got the part of Cliff — a starring role — while my pal Sean and I landed cameos as drunken sailors. This represented little progress from a dancing spider turn in a primary school production.

“I’ve signed us up to a military fitness class.”

“I’m sorry?”

I had zero recollection of ever expressing an interest in such a thing.

“The first class is a taster so it’s free.”

Well, in that case.

After treating my driving instructor to a four pack of room temperature Carling for his efforts (Mr. Generous), I set off on my maiden voyage. I put on a Dr Dre album, wound the windows down and cruised through town, honking at groups of admiring women.

Okay, that is a lie. I nervously stuttered along the road, stalled on a hill start, failed to give way on a bridge to the chagrin of an elderly woman and a van driver, then finally struggled to park at work, paying so much attention to not grazing my boss’s car that I inadvertently drove, incredibly slowly, into a wall.

I was in a bad mood because I’m selfish and Louise hadn’t enjoyed my present and Louise was in a bad mood because she had just sat through an extended version of Insania.

On my first day, I wandered around the industrial estate nearby in the drizzle and didn’t particularly enjoy it. A middle aged colleague spotted me and gave me quizzical look, which I thought was a bit unfair. She was there too after all. What was her game?