Never a dull moment - though if you only read the start of this you may disagree....

OK - stay with me on this tale. A certain amount of scene setting is required.

Yesterday our village school was closed for a teaching training day so my mum came over to look after my niece whilst my sister was at work. For the benefit of anyone who has inexplicably not been playing very close attention to this site, my sister lives just up the road from me. Furthermore, my sons are having exams at the moment which means they are not always at school, and yesterday they were at home 'revising', by which of course I mean surfing the internet and emptying the contents of my fridge.

Now my sister does not have a washing line line for reasons only understood by her, but something to do with washing on a line making the place look untidy. Anyway, there were some wet towels in the house and mum had been considering taking them up to mine to put on my line and get dry, but she kept putting it off as a friend of my niece's was expected to come round to play. It got to about 2.00. The little friend had not yet turned up so mum decided she would take the washing up to mine. This is all very interesting isn't it? You wanted to read a story about how my mum put some wet towels on my washing line. But wait - it gets EVEN more exciting because whilst she was in my back garden she heard the phone ring. Yes I know - how thrilling - my mum heard my phone rang - what ever is going to happen next I hear you ask (that is to say, in the depth of my fevered imagination I hear you). OK - let me tell you what happened next. What happened next was she waited to see if anyone in the house answered it ..."Ring, ring, ring, ring"...but needless to say no one did because obviously my sons were far too busy 'revising' (chatting to mates on MSN)so she came in the back door to get it. After all - it might have been important.

Only she never did answer the phone.

Instead, my heroic and 72 year old mother found herself fire fighting as a basket of clothes - somewhat foolishly left on the ceramic cooker top - was ablaze. As she came in the door she was faced with the vision of flames rising to the ceiling. By means of much screaming and throwing of water around she managed with the belated assistance of more junior family members to extinguish the fire.

Well - the clothes are obviously ruined - and my kitchen floor isn't too good either as burning clothes got dropped on to it. The kitchen walls and ceiling are black as opposed to a usual bright yellow.

To be positive however, I still have a house, and no one was hurt.

It could so easily have been so very very much worse if my mum had not come in by sheer chance at the exact moment she did.

Whoever it was that rang our house at that time - I owe them.

And what with various thefts and car accidents all previously recorded in these parts
I am about to make my FIFTH insurance claim in 12 months - I will be blacklisted by insurance companies at this rate.

So that is my week so far - how are yours?