You get mornings like that, especially when you least want them, and today was one of those days that started badly.

The nurse came before I was up (she has her own key)and gave Whale his Normacol. That meant he'd spend a good hour in the loo so I decided to drag my clothes on and start the cleaning with his room before 'getting up' properly. The vacuum cleaner is a centralised system whereby you plug the hose into one of the sockets round the house and the cat hair and other rubbish is transported via pipes embedded in the walls to the large container in the garage.

I was trying to get at a small piece of paper  under the Whale's bed but instead of dragging it out so I could pick it up I managed to let it get sucked up the pipe. Disaster struck, the noise changed and then silence as the motor shut down. Of course, this wretched piece of paper was now jamming up the pipes somewhere between his bedroom and the garage. After a few attempts to carry on I gave up and got out the old faithful, but terribly noisy Oreck. This was enough to wake Jay and CC but not the Bear, who carried on snoring.

When Jay came down he asked if I'd been outside. We had put the binbags out the night before as they are collected in the early hours. The local marauding cats had torn a hole in the bag containg cat litter  so you can imagine the mess all over the road. I was relieved when Jay volunteered to clear it up.

Back to the cleaning but then I was interrupted by various calls from telesales people. 'Did I suffer from arthritis or rheumatism?', 'Madame, did you receive our wonderful brochure about replacement garage doors and double glazing?', 'You have won a state of the art mobile phone . . . .' The only 'legitimate' call was from a frozen food company that I do order from at times, but today I was programmed to say no thanks.

By now I had decided to make it a 'lick and a promise' job, by not moving furniture unless it was really necessary and by keeping dusting and polishing to a minimum. By the time I had finished it was gone ten o'clock and I still hadn't had a cup of tea or coffee. Neither had the Bear.

I took his coffee through to the bedroom where he was just beginning to stir. 'Oh, is it getting up time?' he said. 'Yes, it's gone ten,' I replied. 'Why did you let me sleep so long?' he protested, sitting up with a start.