A day without drama would be a gift from the gods and today I seem to have won their favour.
larm goes off, check. Pancakes and tea for pre-school breakfast, check. School run done, check.
Arriving home again just as Mrs B leaves for work, two cats and a dog sit patiently at the door awaiting their morning run in the garden. They're actually in a queue, not a squabble between them.
In the peace and quiet of an hour before work, the fresh laundry which has been gathering in baskets in the hall since last weekend is sorted. Once again there are several single socks. They're added to the growing lonely socks club pile. Two more loads of washing are underway. A little of the old normal penetrates the new.
There's no concrete developments on the who's visiting who over Christmas saga, but the options might just have been reduced by one to make things easier.
Mouse trouble is escalating at my sister-in-law's house. The queue to visit her is getting short.
Three casualties upstairs, two in the kitchen in the past couple of days.
She doesn't help herself by googling the mating habits of mice and finding out that they breed up to ten times a year, and do so all year round. She's getting a calculator out to work out the mathematics of the situation and how many more traps she needs to buy before she can find a cat and posting the results on the family whatsapp group to a response of several vomiting emojis. We all decide that if we do have to visit, we'll be off to the shop for a packet of elastic bands to keep the trouser legs tight.
The Galaxy Caramel minis have overtaken the Snickers in popularity as the tub of Celebrations continues to diminish. I'll have to wait until Christmas before I get my hands on a Malteaser or Twix then.
Just when I think the drama of life is something happening elsewhere today, a crisis develops with an SOS message from Belfast. We have a mobile phone down. And 20-year-old lad without a phone is a crisis to behold. A crack in the screen has quickly developed into a full blown disintegration. It's going to be a ring round all the repair shops I can find to see if any are open.
"They should be deemed essential shops," Rowan laments. Several phone calls later I find one. He can probably see it from his flat just off the Lisburn Road. The gods can stop their chuckling.
Later, the kitten and the dog square off over the last sausage roll. The dog foolishly sets it down to bark in triumph. The kitten snatches it, races around the kitchen and shoots off up the stairs with her prize. I'm reminded of a certain eye-gouging Game of Thrones scene fans may recall. Gloating doesn't pay, but at least there was no death involved this time. The dog hunts forlornly around the sofa in the hope she hid something there before. Her hidden treasures have long since been removed. All she can do is stand at the bottom of the stairs and bark her disapproval. To think we used to pay for dinner and a show.