This morning started like any other Sunday morning. I got up, took the 30 second commute to my office to catch up the work that accumulated overnight while John was in the shower.  The sky was dark and cloudy and I knew it would rain. After his shower, John asked if I wanted to go to the market in Caboolture and I looked outside and thought, “Nah, I don’t want to drive for an hour to schlepp around in the rain.”  Of course it didn’t rain. The clouds moved and it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. I had planned a meeting at 11am via the phone and at 10:40 the dog started barking like crazy and that always means there’s someone at the door. We used to have a doorbell but it kept dying so now we use the dog. I expected it was one of the neighbours wanting to tell us we’d left a window open or would we water their garden but no, it was our friends Nick and Anita from near Toowoomba. John answered the door and I stood there hoping the floor would suck me up. You see, Anita is a lovely woman but she’s the biggest neat-freak and well, I might be a freak but neat all the time, I’m not. If you want to visit me, give me at least an hour’s notice to clean up the baby coconuts that the dog drags in (he thinks they’re balls from God for us to toss). There might be a few dirty dishes, although I’m pretty good about that because I have a cooking blog and you can’t shoot photos in the kitchen if the kitchen’s totally crapped out. I also might have laundry in the chair to fold, ironing in a basket, the photographic lights are always up in the dining room and maybe even the props I used last session. Too much to do and not enough hours. I’m no spring chicken,  you know! Anyway, realising that we couldn’t entertain on the front doorstep, John invited them in while I cleaned up the newspaper, two empty glasses, and empty pill card and the dog’s ball off the coffee table. I apologised and said if they’d have called before arriving they wouldn’t have seen such signs of life. She threw her head back and laughed and said, “The glass is always cleaner at my house but I don’t have the fun you do. I wouldn’t cook like you do because it’s too much work to clean the kitchen and the oven.” What??  I couldn’t imaging not wanting to cook because of the effort to clean up. I told her to lighten up and make some muffins. They don’t mess much. Anita and Mick go out for nearly all their meals and I thought it was because she didn’t know how to cook but no, she doesn’t like to see her house less than perfect, even for a few minutes. I’ll happily stay in my lived-in home.