No, not a cricketing reference, muppets, rather a Phoenix-like rebirth from the dust of my recent despair.  And before we proceed let me state YET again that this is meant to be a lighter look at life.  The people and events described are almost always my own delusional  flights of fancy.   Or life.  Whichever version you can handle.

And what has bought about this miraculous return to form?  Step forward my oft maligned boys.  They have both been abroad lately, thank God escaping the hellish heat that was England, and generously providing me with a much needed opportunity for a thorough spring clean (I think you’ll find that the National Trust book on housekeeping agrees that one good dusting a year is the way forward) carried out without disturbing their slumbers with that noisy Hoover. And the clattering row that accompanies the skip delivery.  I’m not a woman for doing things by halves …

Seven days in, a text – always a bad sign – although it begins with a cheery “Hey, Ma” – my own in-house abbreviation for ‘The Madonna of All Sorrows’.

“All is good here”.  Spookily reminiscent of those frequent calls home from university which invariably started “I’m in the library and …” Of course you are and I’m busy mucking out the unicorn. Several more anodyne snippets referring to the weather and then the inevitable “but”.

“I haven’t screwed up majorly”.  Majorly?  For this adjectival abuse we paid for decades of schooling?  And I have already managed to work out for myself that we are not talking real disaster here.  On past experience that involves an air-to-land transmission from the helicopter-bourn secret police of a minor country in the Balkans.  At best.

It is, deep relief, merely a request for an ‘advance’ to pay for a hotel, made necessary by the train having the temerity to leave on time.  Have we taught Johnnie Foreigner nothing?  There is even a receipt for the unexpected outlay and as he observed “I know this is irritating but having to pay 150 euros was more irritating for me than you can imagine!”

Ah, my oft lamented lack of imagination.  How much it spared my parents, certainly in terms of financial outlay.

Spirits restored all round, he closes with a cheery “Hope all is well with you.  Have a good day”.

And the same to you, dear readers.  Have a very good day.