Norman Wisdom In A Pinny.

If you have ever wonderered why tomorrow means three days later to me, it is because I am not normal. Most people agree, so don’t feel bad if it strikes you that occasionally I am a little doo-lally. While other women manage minor household crises with aplomb, the truth is that for the most part, I collapse in a heap and sob into my pinny. The pocket is drenched with tears for crises come and gone…

The night before last I went into the kitchen to grill some halloumi, and while I was waiting, quietly acknowledged to myself that the washing machine sounded a mite peculiar. But I was hungry and most things fail to make any lasting impression when I’m thinking about food. So I busied myself choosing just the right plate and making sure the accompanying mushrooms were sauteing nicely and dipping my finger into the rosemary oil to guarantee I hadn’t killed all the flavour with a pinch too much seasoning, when it suddenly struck me that my feet were wet, and while I was still getting my head around that, there was an almighty bang and water gushed everywhere. Down the kitchen, past my ankles and prettily, all over the cream carpet in the living room. Oh, wonderful.

I went into panic mode and threw scrumptiously clean white towels all over the puddles, and dashed up and down the kitchen, bashing off the wasp determined to kill me, and tryed to switch off the washing machine and slipped and landed in a heap and banged my head on the counter (cue tears), and then I remembered the halloumi, and skidded up to the oven and grabbed the oven door and readers, it fell off in my hands and the halloumi was charcoal, and I was more upset about that than anything else, so I cryed a bit more, then scraped off the burnt bits and arranged it prettily on a plate with my mushrooms, and a long cool glass of white wine, shut the door on the sodden mess of the kitchen and went and sat down as if I hadn’t just spent 10 minutes, looking for all the world like a female Norman Wisdom.

So I have spent a joyful thirty six hours, mopping up puddles, and waiting for Mark to attend to the washing machine (he suspects the cold pipe has come loose, but hasn’t time to fix it!), trying to salvage my sisal rug, but it is now a-stinking and well past keeping, taking up the lino, to make sure a whole world of animal life doesn’t take up in the warm damp mess and handwashing my white towels and everything else needed to keep us going while the washing machine is out of action.

Still at least the halloumi was nice.