Starve day

Max has decided last Monday of every month will be his starve day (some call it detox)... To cleanse the bowels and the mind... And his wallet perhaps? Nah, surely that would be too extreme, even for Max?

Apparently one thinks much more clearly on an empty stomach. So, no food whatsoever, just water and tea with very little fully skimmed milk. Or that herbal stuff he always buys that looks and tastes like something swept off the factory floor...

The start was very promising from what I could hear - the bowels cleansing movement could wake the dead. Max was very proud of the results that far and felt "strangely light" (no surprise there, we went for a curry on Sunday night). By lunchtime his good spirits were definitely waning and I saw murder in his eyes when he looked at me enjoying my goats cheese salad. Like, really enjoying it... Well, I could have stayed out of his way rather than lead him to temptation. But I just couldn't help myself, silly man...

The afternoon was a bit strained so I did stay out of his way. I could hear him banging away at the keyboard upstairs, muttering to himself, ever so slightly unhinged by the self inflicted trauma. He never managed to finish whatever he was doing, too frequently interrupted by yet another visit to the toilet. What was that about thinking more clearly on an empty stomach?

I was banned from eating my dinner anywhere near him and the cats had to eat their supper outside. Poor Max, even the sight of tinned cat food was too much to bear...

By the end of the day he was even less lucid, his mutterings getting more disturbing, his stomach no longer growling. "I feel fuzzy," he said and went to bed at 8.30.

I just need to put it on record that he went through a week's supply of toilet paper... Which I kindly pointed out first thing this morning.

Off to see the wizard...

I sent Max food shopping today, alone. Now, I don't normally do this. Even with a carefully scripted shopping list, he ignores the directives and comes back with offers (at best) or stuff dangerously close to their sell-by date (at worst). The wrong side of their sell-by date, I hasten to add. Also, what he would call non-essential stuff is often sold out. Or so he claims.

But I was busy today, trying to earn a few pennies, so off he went, all on his lonesome.

Two hours later he was back, looking somewhat sheepish. And guilty as hell. Apparently, they had sold out of my favourite cherry beer. And that goats cheese I like was discontinued. And I can make my own ear buds with some cocktail sticks and the cotton wool that has been lingering in the bathroom cupboard since time immemorial.

But, oh triumph!, he got us a pack of four white giant burger baps, at half the price of the brown bread I would usually get.

We don't do burgers. We don't do white bread (we are quite health conscious... or snobs... call it what you want). Baps - these we don't do at all.

Now he's dug out my mother's old mincer so I can whiz up homemade burgers with the old hunk of beef he also bought (yes, it was on offer and cheaper than the ready made mince...).

Off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Mince. I hear he is a whiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was... This witch will lose her fingers tonight...

Or, shall I tell him to take a whiz?

He only lasts 3 minutes...

Max balances himself carefully, legs astride, his knuckles white with the effort of grasping the edge of the bathtub... His breathing gets faster and faster, beads of sweat start forming on his forehead and his whole body trembles uncontrollably... And then... Wham bam thank you mam! He collapses in a heap at the bottom of the tub... He doesn't usually last longer than the proverbial 3 minutes...

Since we are getting poorer by the day, I'm not allowed to have a soak (neither does Max, obviously...) 'cause it takes too much hot water and, excuse the pun, it's money down the drain... Yadi, yadi, ya... Our bathtub is now Max's oversized bidet, hence the uncomfortable and bizarre balancing act... Bizarre, albeit strangely compelling to watch...

I wouldn't be caught dead with my bum hanging over the bath. Anyway, off to have a shower. A three minute one, mind you...

Little leggies

How many times can you wear the same pair of socks? Well, on Planet Max sometimes twice (to save on washing powder, naturally). I must say it only happens if he's worn the said pair for the afternoon or so, so he's not a complete dirtbag.

I suppose it wouldn't bother me so much if the said pair then actually ended up in the laundry basket. But Max usually just drops them on the stairs and it's a long way up to where the laundry basket is. Poor little mites struggle up the stairs for hours on end, pining for a helping hand....

Yesterday I felt so sorry for their lonely, Sisyphus plight, I gave them legs. Cardboard cut-outs, two to a sock, sewn on with a bit of thread. Each labelled "I've grown a leggie!" Then I waited for Max.

They got up the stairs relatively quickly after that.

Electric Light Orchestra... not!

We're poor now and one step from spending our evenings in the dark. No telly, no Internet, no nothing that would require good, old lecky.

Thinking about it, I've got my grandfather's old radio up in the loft, the wind-up variety...

Anyway, Max has got us one of those free electricity meters. It tells you how many pennies it takes to boil the kettle or to use the microwave. Or to run the fridge. To live, basically.

As a result, tap water is now healthier than a hot cup of tea and microwaving food gives you cancer. And the fridge is on its lowest setting.

The computer eats about 2p an hour so if we work 8 hours a day, so many days a year, we'll be able to claim a £XX deduction on our tax returns. Can't be bothered to work this out. But then, I don't have to - Max will.

I might just point out that the evil device has to be plugged in to give us a reading...

The piggy bank

We may be lucky to have no carpets in the house but this poses a problem. As in: things disapear between the floorboards rather frequently.

We have, I'm sure, amassed a collection of paperclips and what-have-yous this way and I don't lose sleep over an odd coin either. Just can't be bothered.

But it was different the other day, when a lonely pound coin escaped Max's pocket (how did it do that?!) and rolled, and rrrolled... All the way across the hallway, coming to rest eventually - you guessed it - under the floorboards!

What happened next involved an old coathanger, then a lever of sorts, and an amusing half an hour from where I was standing. The coin is still there...

Wipe me, baby, one more time...

The other thing about cats is that they vomit a lot, usually for no obvious reason. And, usually in a sneaky place so you only find it a week or so later.

I suppose we're lucky to have no carpets in the house so it's only a matter of detecting, scooping and wiping the floor clean. It's not much bother, really, you just use a damp cloth, then go over with a piece of paper kitchen towel. Voila!

And, if you are Max, you can always dry this piece of paper towel in the airing cupboard or on the radiator, and use it again...

The pooper-scooper

When you've got four cats who don't go out at night, going down to the kitchen first thing in the morning is not a pleasant experience.

They've got three litter trays between them, by the back door, and make full use of them, like the good little boys and girls they are. They dig and cover the doo-dah, so enthusiastically in fact that on occasion a little nugget (or two) and half a ton of litter end up five feet away, right in the middle of the kitchen floor. And that's what you see, when you come down to our kitchen first thing in the morning.

So, you pick up the nuggets, sweep the floor, and then YOU get to do the digging, with the pooper-scooper.

The only thing is, with so many cats who will not go and soil the neighbours' garden even during the day, the litter gets expensive. So you sift it with the pooper-scooper and make sure that what's sort of clean goes back to the trays and is used again.

The only thing is, how much you can save is down to the quality of your pooper-scooper. We have experimented with many over the years but not even one has come up to scratch so far.

Not too worry. Max's downstairs, drilling more holes in our latest digging tool, to make it more economical.

Shall I suggest brushing off the little nuggets too? I wonder...