h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sunday morning I must admit that our family slept in later than normal, and didn't stir until the mid-morn hour of 8:30am. My wife had arranged for us all to enjoy a family breakfast at 9am at the restaurant that her family were staying in, so off we went, arriving bang on time. My wife's cousin and his wife didn't show, but her parents, brother, niece, uncle and aunt were there and we all enjoyed a Full English breakfast. My breakfast starter was a mix of all the breakfast cereals we don't have at home mixed together in a bowl, with a side plate of pain au chocolate (which translates as pain), followed by the main of sausages, beans, proper bacon, hash browns, (not in a sandwich!) and without the mushrooms or - I spent a summer working in a greenhouse, becoming the first ever colourblind person to be hired there following the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act meant they were no longer allowed to refuse to employ colourblind people. The experience of working in a greenhouse 7am-3pm has put me off a tad. And for pud they had pancakes, which I mainly had as my daughter really wanted pancakes, only she was too nervous to put them down the toaster herself.
Of course, the great thing about having a large, cooked breakfast is that it means you don't need a cooked meal the rest of the day – which is very handy, as our kitchen was completely full of trays. All the caterer's trays that we'd brought back the night before, dirty and covered with food, were taking up every conceivable kitchen surface. And these things are much larger than the, I don't know, just over a foot by just under a foot?-sized kitchen sink we have, so not something we could easily wash. And they came in every conceivable size and shape – it wouldn't be too bad if they were a uniform design and easily stackable, but no, there were circular trays and oval trays and square trays and rectangular trays, of all different sizes and dimensions, meaning that there were no two trays that would easily stack on top of each other without becoming incredibly unstable. And no way to wash the things over the kitchen sink without risking the tray shapes from splashing water all over the floor. I thought the only thing to do would be to take 'em into the shower and wash 'em in there.
So for the whole day we had no kitchen surface left and no way to get to the sink to wash up the non-trays either, meaning the whole kitchen had been turned overnight into a no-go zone.

So after my wife's family had left and we returned home, we spent the afternoon opening the s that her family and friends had given, writing down a list of who had given what and trying to work out who the mystery gifts were from. (My favourite s that she received were that her parents gave her an Animal and her uni friends had given her a Lego Harry Potter triple-decker Knight set).

And the housework priority was washing all the bedding and floors etc, as we'd discovered it is now the season for to have fleas…

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Wow, that was an epic breakfast... Glad it gave you time to sort the kitchen out before you needed more cooked food

Glad your wife got lovely gifts that will provide hours of fun

Sorry to hear about and the fleas - that was one thing we were lucky to avoid with our cat, but I hope there is a treatment you can get to sort the problem out quickly.

We're trying both prevention and cure at the moment – as well as washing and vacuuming and applying flea powder on everything (except possibly the trays, which are still loitering in our place)…

One thing is that our is very patient, more so than previous pets we've had. Unlike others we've had who, when shut out, start scratching at the door and meowing, she sits outside and waits for the door to open. (Except for the door to outside which, before we installed the flap she would jump onto the door handle of and open it herself, leaving the front door wide open…) So we've shut her out of both bedrooms to limit her to the kitchen, hall and lounge. I don't think I've had any new bites in the last couple of days.

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Clever .

That is good that she is patient (and hasn’t worked out how to open the bedroom doors!)

Also sounds hopeful that the problem is getting under control

can do levers and pushing, and if there's room she can put her paw round and pull - but she can't do rotating handles.

She's still bringing them in, though...

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