More Faffery...

... although this borders on the nightmarish it has to be said.

Does anybody else have days when they wonder why they get up? I knew I was in for trouble this morning when I got out of bed without realising my foot was more tangled in the bedclothes than usual and thus went sprawling when said foot failed to disengage as normal. In light of what was to come I should really have got back in, pulled up the duvet and forgotten about everything THEN ...

We will not talk about the chick crumb going everywhere (including INSIDE my wellies) when I opened a new bag to feed my chirping babies and it tipped over. We will not talk about the coffee granules going all over the kitchen when I decided I couldn't be bothered making a pot of filter coffee and decided to open a new, and therefore almost impregnable, jar of instant instead. We WILL, however, talk about the latest mess The Kittens have got themselves into, the Mess Which Has Taken Me An Hour To Clean Up. And I am not finished yet... sigh.

The Kittens have got to the stage now where they are playing virtually every minute they are awake. Cute in daylight hours - not so cute at 3am when they jump all over my face trying to get me, Surrogate Kitten Mum, to join in. I've tried shutting the doors to my room... all this means is I am woken by the sound of kittens doing a demolition job on the carpet outside the room as they try to dig their way in. So, because it won't do them any harm, and because I am Not A Nice Person when I've had a disturbed night's sleep, I have been putting them in the utility room with a massive tray of food, their bed and litter tray. They seem perfectly content with this and I get some quality snooze time: everybody happy.

Unfortunately for me, the Ray Mears Nuclear Survival Larder is an integral part of the utility room. Most things are shut away in cupboards, but there are some open shelves on which bulky items such as catering jars of various products, jumbo size cans of tomatoes etc and 5 litre cans of olive oil are stored. Not something three small kittens would be interested in, or capable of doing any damage to, you would think.

Dream on, gentle readers... these are The Kittens and it seems they were having an exceptionally active time of it last night, because on opening up the utility room this morning a sight which can only be decribed as carnage met my eyes. At some point the little darlings had knocked over the aforementioned 5 litre can of olive oil, which had obviously not been done up quite tightly enough, because most of it was lying on the floor. Then obviously they'd decided this was not quite good enough, so a plastic jar of tomato puree had somehow been induced to fall off a shelf, whereupon the lid had come off and the contents gradually induced to leak from the plastic casing. Not content with this, the three little darlings had decided an olive oil and tomato puree bath was precisely what was needed for their general health and wellbeing, and, judging by the smears all over the floor, walls and shelves, they'd had a high old time of it first rolling in the goo on the floor and then chasing each other over the entire room.

As if this wasn't bad enough, I'd stupidly not put away my clean-washing basket, which was full of stuff waiting to be ironed today. Putting this away is something I normally do as a matter of extreme importance when The Kittens are incarcerated for the night; unfortunately I was interrupted by a phone call last night and forgot all about it. Something tells me no ironing's going to get done today, because The Kittens had patently decided this object made a far more desireable and comfy bed than their shop-bought one and, indeed, that is where I found the three of them curled up asleep, once I'd waded, slipped and sworn my way past the mess to get to them. Suffice it to say I was NOT in my most sympathetic mood at this juncture, and the three gloopy, red little bodies have been put firmly in the front garden where they will stay until they have licked every vestige of Utility Room Mess off themselves.

If anybody feels like calling round with a magnum of Gevrey Chambertin, a large slab of bitter chocolate and a team of Fillipino cleaners I will marry you and have your babies.