The last time Jess went away for the weekend, I accidentally deleted the entire PuzzleDonkey database, and with it the progress of everyone who’d spent hours sweating over all our sneaky puzzles (so much for never mentioning it again, then). That’s the sort of trouble I get into if she turns her back on me for a couple of days. Well, she’s now gone away for an entire FORTNIGHT, doing some work experience at the Rossendale Free Press (so those of you who live in that part of the country can play Spot The Articles Wot Jess Wrote). Just imagine how much mayhem I can create left for two whole weeks without the Betty to my Frank Spencer.

So far the worst I’ve managed is to scald myself whilst defrosting the freezer, which you might think is the activity with the least possible danger of scalding, but I managed it anyway. I got a great big blister on my finger which made it very difficult to do anything productive. It looked a lot like a single bubble on a sheet of bubble wrap, and was just as tempting to pop. Which of course I did, and now it looks a lot like a single bubble on a sheet of bubble wrap after you’ve popped it.

For fear of agitating my finger in its delicate state, I haven’t dared to do the washing up, which is a shame because there was a pretty big pile to begin with. It’s now gotten to the point that more or less every piece of crockery and cutlery that we own is piled precariously in the vicinity of the sink, and while the rest of the house isn’t quite as bad, it’s remarkable how little time I have to be home alone before my previous life’s entropic state begins to reawaken. It’s like Wall-E meets Steptoe and Son.

So, yes, on Friday I deposited Jess in Rossendale so she can be a roving reporter. Incidentally, she’s now fully recovered from the pain she was in the other week. She had a very strange combination of symptoms, which turned out to be because she’d simultaneously contracted indigestion and hay fever. Do you contract hay fever? She’s never had it before, so I don’t know what’s going on if you don’t.

Then on Saturday I went to my sister’s place for my nephew’s birthday party. And it was great! There were TWO bouncy castles, and - get this - the ACTUAL SPIDERMAN! He taught us how to be superheroes! Apparently it mainly involves doing the hokey cokey with slightly modified lyrics. But it really was him, not just a man in a costume. You could tell because he had an American accent.

And that more or less covers everything interesting that’s been going on lately. No doubt we’ll speak again soon. I don’t miss being single, but it’s certainly easier to find things to blog about when there isn’t someone standing by to curtail the excesses of my reckless stupidity.