Why this book exists
A focused place to understand what is happening
Hester is forty-eight and she has a map in her head. It covers everywhere she goes regularly and a good deal that she does not, and it records the location of every accessible toilet, whether it requires a key, how long the queue tends to be, and how far it is from the entrance. She updates it constantly. She checks it before she agrees to anything. She has declined invitations on the basis of it, chosen where to sit in restaurants because of it, and once left a wedding reception during the speeches because the map had proved wrong. Hester has had stress urinary incontinence since her second child was born twelve years ago. She has never told a doctor. She buys pads in a different supermarket from the one she normally uses. She has stopped running.
The writing is designed to reduce shame, bring the underlying pattern into view and give you practical ways to respond without pretending that every life follows the same formula.
