Having reached a round, ripe 30 years, I feel one knows oneself better. At least, one is trying to know oneself better. The likes, the dislikes, the things that make one happy, the things that don’t. One is far, far away from wisdom and enlightenment and happiness still feels like it is a thing to be obtained rather than something entwined with everything else, able to be got at at any moment, if only one would just let go. This much I know and so far my most significant achievement to date post-30 is understanding that those moments stood by the cupboard door, opening the cupboard door, reaching in the cupboard, seeing the jar of peanut butter, grabbing the jar of peanut butter, opening the lid of the jar of peanut butter, taking a deep sniff of the peanut butter, taking a spoon into the peanut butter and putting the peanut butter into your salivating mouth are a delectable, all-consuming, higher-plane, seismic euphoria. Ergo: happiness.

So, such is my collaboration with said happiness-giver, peanut butter, that when I was assigned a temp job for seven days in which I would be in sole charge of an office while the team were away, one can imagine the mixture of delight and horror when I found my only companion was an opened but barely touched jar of posh peanut butter. I think I managed a casual shrug when I first arrived. I can handle this, I thought, in my calm, fresh, first-day state. What of it? I won’t be a slave to this little pot of joy. There was also a box of fruit that I was told to help myself to, and I thought, if I happen to need any nourishment, I will reach for one of those there plums, thank you very much, because I am a strong, 30 year old woman, with intelligence and grace.

How naive. Truth be told I didn’t even get past the first day without dunking into it with a teaspoon. It started with just a little sniff – around the 3pm slump (understandable) – and then out of sheer curiosity, but still with strength and willpower, just a little scrape to see if it was indeed a superior brand, or if Sainsbury’s own was just as good – because I would know. Yes, it was bloody good. But naturally I needed three spoonfuls to properly judge.

Needless to say, the whole week was spent with an imaginary umbilical cord between me and this tub of gooey ambrosia. It gave a gentle tug at first but by the end of the week I was like some wild-eyed mother/creature clawing my way back to my kidnapped offspring. It’s amazing how dramatically one can change in a matter of days when left alone. At one point, on the edge of insanity, I was convinced that this was some social experiment. I started off in a very controlled, mature fashion – reading the newspaper, delicately preparing my healthy lunch, cupboard firmly closed with no wild urges to break into it with a hammer to rescue my love. I would diligently answer the telephone, e-mail the messages. Things started to waver a bit when I made the odd decision to do an hour of yoga a day but still, how healthy and productive was I?

But by the last couple of days I had gone completely bat-shit, stir crazy and was roaming around like a Tyrannosaurus-Rex on heat. The yoga went out the window, the helpful telephone manner was abandoned and the cucumber on rice cakes was thrown to the wayside. I had my feet up on the desk, watching Breaking Bad back to back, belly hanging out and the tub of peanut butter had been aggressively torn off and every morsel was licked, sucked, chewed and relished. The cleaners turned up at one point and I actually fell off my swivel chair the way Michael J Fox might have in the ’80s.

And on the Seventh day, there was no rest because I now had one day to hunt down another jar of this particular godforsaken peanut butter (forgive me, peanut butter). So I scampered around Soho desperately looking for the poshest food shops that might have imported this American looking brand, to no avail. And then I went onto amazon and yes they had it but no it couldn’t be delivered in the next hour. Oh God. What if it was the CEO’s peanut butter? Would I forever get a black mark on my temp CV for being the peanut butter stealer? What if there was CCTV? Were the team all going to sit around not eating their favourite peanut butter and watch footage of dirty old me, slowly resembling Mrs. Twit in a soiled dressing gown and thrusting peanut butter into my catatonic chops?

Well, hopefully I wouldn’t give them cause to because Wholefoods came to the rescue!! (Bet they get that statement a lot from middle class desperadoes). So I pranced back to the office draping my proverbial dressing gown with a huge grin on my face knowing that I would now, dutifully, have to go back and eat just enough to make it look like it had never been touched in the first place, complete with label hanging off just so, as I had originally found it. (Anybody would think it was a murder weapon).