Happy New Year

I stand at the top of the stairs, sniffing the air with mounting trepidation. It's been some time since TFD decorated the kitchen but, yes, he has waited until my first day back at work. I should be looking forward to a quiet, unhurried read of the newspaper over a cuppa with no little monkeys to prepare breakfast for or dress. Instead, I am clearing crap and a veritable lake of pi...wee from the kitchen floor. It's all I can do to stifle the urge to gut and spit-roast the cocker spaniel on the spot.

I drive to work content that in AlfWorld alles in Ordnung.

I enter the office with a cheery "Happy New Year to you all".

"5-0," mumbles the Aussie. If the Ashes is a whitewash his leaving do later this month will be phenomenally expensive.