The last straw

This is a whine about Elizabeth Hurley.

So if you enjoy reading complaining whines about people you don't have to suffer, read on. If it makes you impatient that Grit and Dig are too weedy to get rid of her, read on.

1. Breakfast is very important for Elizabeth Hurley. So important that she can drink all the milk for the children's cereal. Then, when I come into the kitchen on my way to my getting-up shower, EH waves the empty milk bottle at me, saying 'there is no milk'.

2. Jam is very important too. It might be more important than milk. Complaining that there is no jam in the house is a sign of its significance. Yes, Elizabeth. That's because I've hidden the 14 pots of home-made jam to stop you eating them. In exchange, I put out two pots of Hartley's which are on special offer at Tesco. Incidentally, this prompted the complaint.

3. Elizabeth Hurley is not very sensitive to her environment. She somehow picks just the wrong moment. For example, as we are rushing to get Shark, Squirrel and Tiger out the house to a lesson I've paid for (therefore they are going) Hurley asks if I can teach her how to use the microwave. I don't know how to use it myself, so the only answer is no. I get a very impatient glower.

4. Everyone seems to have an allergy to something these days. Elizabeth Hurley is allergic to the vacuum cleaner and washing machine. Despite being asked to vacuum the floor (we have to be specific after Sasha) and wash Squirrel's bedding, nothing is done. Even when we have been out the house for five hours to give her the chance to get her head round it.

5. In fact, when we are out the house for five hours, the house looks exactly the same when we enter as it did when we left. Last night's towels are on the sofa where the children left them. The popped balloon bits remain on the schoolroom floor. The laundry has taken up its usual place of spilling around the kitchen and Hurley has done her usual trick of emptying the dishwasher after I have placed it on rinse, so all the pots are covered in a fine layer of potato starch, rancid milk and greasy butter slime. All the crockery is stacked on the worksurface as usual because EH never puts anything away, claiming she does not know where it goes.

6. When EH eventually does the laundry, she puts all the powder into the hole for fabric conditioner. Grit wonders if she has done it deliberately.

7. Asking us to find the keys to the front door which she realises she lost yesterday when going to the pub is not a good way to start to the day.

8. Taking my place at the dining table was bad enough. Becoming so useless that Grit now has to clean the toilet to Elizabeth Hurley's room is edging to the final straw.

9. The final straw. It is supper time. Elizabeth Hurley has said she feels tired today and would like soup. So I cook potage bonne femme for her and pasta for everyone else. Then I call everyone to the table. I trigger Tiger's temper tantrum. I call Tiger to the table and she doesn't want to come. But now we are late to eat and I am weary and I want to keep out the way by pushing off to Tesco to buy jam, leaving Dig to calm things down. When I get back from Tesco, everyone's eaten. That I'm not upset by. I am upset by the fact that Elizabeth Hurley has cleared up only her soup bowl. Everything else is at the kitchen table. So at 10pm tonight I am tired, hungry, and clearing up the kitchen.

It's enough. The flight back home is rescheduled, not for Hurley's preference in December, but for October 11.