I”M beginning to wonder if it will ever stop raining. Every morning seems to bring the same picture…grey skies and rain on a sliding scale which runs from miserable drizzle to torrential downpour.

My regular view up the garden has been unchanging for weeks so much so that I had almost forgotten I could see the mountain over the top of my computer screen.

Even the prospect of a jaunt out on the weekend has seemed less attractive when it’s meant braving the rain just to get to the car.

“We could go on a search for the new dining room chairs this weekend,” said the housemate, determined to strike while the iron was hot just after I had grudgingly agreed to a change of furniture.

“Or…” I replied. “I could use Saturday to clear out my wardrobe and get rid of some old clothes and we could tackle the cupboard under the stairs which you’ve wanted to clean out for years.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re ditching the new chair plan does it because I really hate the ones we’ve got now?”

“No, it’s not ditched, just delayed,” I replied. “Although I don’t really know what’s wrong with the old ones.”

“They’re too big and they’re uncomfortable. Even your mother agrees with me,” she snapped back with her well rehearsed argument.

“I don’t find them uncomfortable,” I answered.

“You don’t sit on them because you always nab one of the lovely carver chairs you said we needed.”

“I know I do, but that’s only because I struggle when I don’t sit in the same seat at the table,” I replied.

“Everyone knows that…because you glare at anyone who dares sit in your place,” she muttered.

“Anyway I think we’ll stay at home on the weekend and do some clearing out,” I said bringing the conversation to and end.

Days later as we prepared to enter the depths of the under-stair cavern The Mother phoned.

“I won’t be cooking on Sunday,” she announced.

“That’s fine,” I replied. “The weather is too horrible to even go out shopping.”

“It’s not that,” came the reply. “My cooker has finally given up the ghost. It went bang this morning and just stopped working.”

“That’s no shock,” said the housemate. “It was on the blink when we were living with you and that was 13 years ago!”

“I’ve got a new one coming on Monday but I won’t be able to do dinner on Sunday,” said The Mother. “Did you hear that bit…I won’t be able to cook dinner…for anyone…”

“Oh…do you want to come here?” I asked, suddenly picking up on the hanging silence. “I thought you wouldn’t want to come out in the pouring rain.”

“Well I’ve got to eat,” she replied. “ Although I’m not sure if my cooker is completely frazzled. When I checked the board it had blown a fuse and once that was sorted it worked again,”

“You need a new cooker,” I confirmed. “It’s been dodgy for ages and you use it all the time. It would be awful if it packed in when you were having visitors or something.”

“That’s true,” she replied. “It not as if it was your sister’s oven. That could be broken for a year and she wouldn’t notice!”