Well, the new flooring arrives tomorrow, and I’m very excited!  We are also going to Nando’s tomorrow, so Barry’s very excited!  This is our kitchen floor as is – a bit industrial for my taste.

We’ve got the table and chairs I wanted from Argos; they’re winging their little way to us now (well, in the next 35 days).  There’s a bit of a story behind this.

My mum came round for tea the other night and I had a fantastic menu planned: to start, grilled flat mushrooms filled with dolcelatte, with a balsamic glaze and small side salad.  For the main event, a lamb tagine with La Kama spices, honey and fresh ginger, with a variety of fresh vegetables and a side of spiced couscous.  For dessert, buns fresh from the oven, baked by my own fair hand.

Mum was supposed to arrive after 7pm, when she’d had her hair done and driven over to Bradford.  In the meantime, I was going to get my skates on after work – jump on the bus, nip to Morrisons, dash round the shop and get home.  Unpack the shopping, stick the tagine in, get changed, clean the bathroom, and start preparing the starter and dessert.

Instead, this is what happened: Mum text me at 4.30pm with the following:

Hi love i am in asda bradford do u need owt ? Hair cancelled x x

My heart rate immediately tripled and my work colleagues had to tell me to calm down.  I replied:

Oh bugger, I’ve got to go to morrisons to get some shopping because I thought I had time!xx

I will get it here darl if u would like me to x x

My colleague Michelle T told me to just tell her what I wanted from the shop (thereby skipping the trip to Morrisons myself).  I text the list back:

Would you please get: big flat mushrooms, dolcelatte, bag of baby spinach, lamb, courgettes, 1% (or semi skimmed) milk and a cauliflower?  Oh, and a bottle of asti.xx

This is when it started falling apart, because the shop didn’t have everything I needed for my careful plans.  She thought dolcelatte was a type of mushroom, and picked up cauliflower and broccoli pieces because they didn’t have a whole one.  Trying to direct your mother to a very specific blue-veined cheese in a shop you don’t frequent, while trying to get home in time to beat her (be quicker than her, not hit her) is quite difficult to do.

In the end, she suggested that we just get a curry.  We both agreed that a curry was, indeed, the best course of action, would be cheaper, and that she definitely still needed to bring two bottles of Asti back with her.  I beat her back to mine, did a rush cleaning job, got changed and spoke to my brother before she got back to my house with the vino.  Phew!

Anyway, she had been trying to buy us a kitchen table for three-and-a-half years as a housewarming gift, but we’d never had the space before.  She’s taken pity on us, and is finally buying us the table and chairs.  I realise now that this has nothing to do with the meal story, but I’ve kept it in anyway as an idea of what my life is actually like.  I live on a knife edge.  Hurray for future breakfasts in the kitchen!