It’s just got even harder to wash in this house. It’s already a total fucking mare, to be frank. Currently i enter the brand spanking new bathroom, pull the cord to turn on the light (“Don’t yank it Natalie!”), close the door (“Gently! I didn’t pay for a door so you could slam it like an animal!”*), clean my teeth (“Is there water on the granite? You have to mop it up IMMEDIATELY or it’ll stain!**). Then i clamber into the shower to stand under the water and glumly note all the water splashing off me and onto the wall, bath and that plastic panel, knowing i will have to mop it all up in a minute, like evaporation hasn’t been invented.

It’s a total palaver and supports my theory that a shower should be a bi-weekly event. And now it’s got even worse, thanks to my Dad, after years of thriftiness, flinging something frankly Bacchanalian into the mix. Now, regular readers of this blog will know, the Luurtsemas are modest people, we are not wealthy, we are not flashy (through lack of funds more than innate restraint), however Dad has possibly stumbled across an episode of MTV Cribs and seen more than he should. For he has had UNDERFLOOR HEATING installed in the bathroom. That is like a radiator, right, but under the floor. It’s mind-boggling. And foot-warming.

When i first heard of this plan i scoffed. Ill admit it, i called him Caesar for a day and peeled him grapes (I dont know where that saying comes from, they are minging when unsheathed, i dont believe rich people ever wanted that). I soon stopped, realising as he doesnt ever listen to me I was only annoying myself. But that was until i experienced hotfloor, and fell in love.

Unfortunately, I’m not the only one, and that’s the problem. The cats discovered it instantly, with their uncanny knack for spotting yet another comfy bed to add to their database. So whenever the underfloor heating is turned on (and Mum rations him to 2 hours a day, possibly so he doesnt get accustomed to happiness) the cats sprawl all over the floor, writing orgiastically. Which, as you can imagine, really detracts from the glossy look of the new bathroom, it suddenly looks like a battlefield I have to pick my way through. It’s a bit like the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, enacted with relaxed felines. Which, i admit, fundamentally changes the tone and impact of the piece, but nevertheless there’s the same wading through bodies and sense of confused distress.

I’ve also discovered there’s few things more annoying than having a shower (bad enough in itself), getting out, mopping the stupid thing down, then trudging damply back to my room only to discover cat hair all over my damp feet, giving me a horribly Hobbitty look. Im a big Tolkien fan but there’s a time and a place, and i would say just pre-socks is a bad time for this sort of business.

Now im going to sleep. I came home tonight after a gig where 60 people looked at me and thought ‘no, you are not for us. You do not amuse us.’ There was no anger in this, it felt firm but fair, yet still made my stomach ache a bit with sadness. (I feel most of my emotions in my stomach. In the days of the corset i would’ve been psychotic with suppression). Then i came home and was ‘greeted’ with salmon en croute and bread and butter pudding and the words’ eat this quickly, it went off yesterday.’

*No, i don’t know what this means either. I am but the conduit, i offer no explanations.
** I don’t believe this for a second. What bellend would market a bathroom worktop so incapable of dealing with water? “Lovely sofa” “Thanks, it explodes at the touch of a buttock though, hope that’s not inconvenient.”