It's the dishes that always get me. A sense of impending doom hanging over me, like a paraplegic watching a pot of pasta boil over, helpless in the face of approaching disaster.

Five minutes becomes half an hour, and next time I look up, two hours have passed. And still the dishes sit, patiently, stubbornly, waiting.

I have two choices. It's either sit here until my eyes bleed and the sandman comes despite me, to send me off to sleep.

Or get up, leave this addiction, and tackle the dishes. Armed with only soap and rubber gloves.

Tonight, I have decided, will be the latter.

Mummy will be proud.