Thank you so much!
I'll tell you what I've done so far:
After school I went into town and bought myself a gardening magazine, a bottle of nail varnish (coral something or other) and a pair of shoes (€4 from Penny's, blown the Housekeeping I have NOT!).
When I got home I cooked myself a pan of black kale and sun dried tomatoes with LOADS of green coriander and green garlic...found it among the weeds in a veg bed! (the garlic and the kale!) Delish! (no one else likes such an excessively green supper).
Then I had about an hour and a half of pure bliss sitting on the kitchen sofa reading my gardening magazine, whilst drinking tea, painting my nails (when was the last time I did THAT??) and listening to the radio (RTÉ Lyric FM) at a volume high enough to actually HEAR (and a programme of world folk music which I love and the rest scorn).
The dogs were beetling round doing their own thing and Small Dog was trying to destroy the inside tube from the greaseproof paper roll, which is quite a lot longer than him and causing problems....every so often he gives up chewing the ends and decides to go for the kill; stalking it, pouncing on it, shaking it and trying to throw it into the air!
He's a right comedian...
And I realised something: I was, just then, totally and utterly content.
Then Middlest texted to say she was bringing one of her Lecturers over so they could work, so I lept up and threw all the stuff on the dining table down behind the sofa, collapsed the clothes rack (clothes and all) so I could toss it into the bath and pull the shower curtain, and was frantically whizzing round the kitchen with the hoover when they arrived...
AAAAARRRGH...
I really wouldn't say I'm a slovenly housekeeper, a bit here-and-thereish definitely, but anyone who visits must think I'm a regular slattern because NO ONE EVER CALLS WHEN THE HOUSE IS CLEAN!
