‘Didn’t you even see the puddle?!’

THE vital bits of our house – the mechanisms that keep this dysfunctional family functioning – are in mutiny.

Important things that prevent us harming each other, such as the TV, internet and fridge.

When Julie was denied access to her beloved Facebook, she hurled a tin of Baxter’s soup at my head. It connected with a dull thud.

When the portal eventually reopened, she corresponded vigorously with her 1,336 virtual friends – one’s a Nepalese midget mime artist – under a new status: “carer for poorly hubby”.

When the fridge spluttered and its inner light dimmed like a struggling pulse, my son was sparked into a frenzy, ripping lids from yoghurt pots in the short window of opportunity betwixt the rising temperature and sell-by date.

It reminded me of a wildlife documentary about Alaskan grizzly bears feasting on salmon as they struggled to reach spawning grounds.

The noise was much the same. When the washing machine began to spew suds onto the kitchen floor, I spent all night on Hotpointwatch, ready to blow the whistle if the churning mix of jeans and grey water attempted an escape. It may have been the cheap red wine, but by 3am I’m sure the bubbles morphed into Jesus’ face.

I may have been mistaken. It might have been a young Cat Stevens.

Either way, it’s not a miracle, the Vatican has informed me.

Monsignors are understandably cautious after being stung by a bleeding biscuit.

Analysis showed it to be a Jammy

Dodger.

For a man with overalls, the right equipment and the ability to whistle like Roger Whittaker while head-first in a sink unit, applying first aid to our ailing appliances would be a mere bagatelle.

To Yours Truly – a man publicly told by Wellington Grammar School’s woodwork teacher “You’ll never make a woodwork teacher as long as there’s a hole in your *****” (he was gleefully smashing a jewellery box I’d made at the time), these are operations that acquire the skill, guile and bravery of

Red Adair.

I blame my wife. For my 60th birthday she offered to get me something steamy and announced on the evening she’d hired a stripper. “Steamy” was an understatement.

It was a wallpaper stripper. Being a DIY duffer has caused marital friction.

In 1993, she threatened to leave because of my inability to do “little jobs” around the home, such as demolishing supporting walls and building a granny flat.

“Make sure the front door doesn’t hit your fat backside on the way out,” I scowled.

“Fat chance,” she mocked, “it’s in bubblewrap in the garage.”

Friday brought the worst catastrophe of all, worse than any horror Mother Nature threw at us over the last three weeks.

One of our radiators leaked, spewing brackish water onto the polished oak floorboards.

The metal rack had been haemorrhaging its contents for a good hour, while I lounged on a settee only feet away, before my wife discovered the disaster.

It started with a hiss. Then the hiss of a thin jet of water became a gentle trickle before gaining pace and power.

When my wife walked in, water had made a dash from under the sofa.

“Didn’t you see the puddle?” she shrieked.

Whisper it, but I thought it was the cat’s work and best discovered by someone else.

“You thought it was the cat?” shrieked my wife.

I don’t tend to take much notice when it comes to cats.

I rang the vets and asked: “On average, how long do cats sleep for?”

“It varies,” he replied, “but around 15 hours a day is the norm.”

“So you’d class 10 months as excessive?” I ventured before putting the phone down. RIP Mittens.

In the chaos, panic and madness that ensued, I learned something. BluTack doesn’t work on a punctured radiator. Likewise, Sellotape and clingfilm.

I also learned it takes four minutes and 23 seconds for your average plastic bucket to fill with water from a bulletwound in a 3ft 4ins radiator.

After two hours of desperate fumbling – by the end, I was simply barking at the ironwork to “cease” – my wife rang a “24-hour, registered emergency plumber” which is a grandiose title for someone called Daz with a tattooed portrait of his pet bull terrier Tyson on his back.

He initially tried to “talk me through” the disaster, using the dramatic language of someone trying to gently coax a panic-stricken passenger into landing a Boeing.

“You’ve taken the cap off,” he said slowly, “now you should see a nipple.” “Is it pink?” I asked.

“Of course it’s not bloody pink,” snapped the plumber before gathering himself and adopting the tone of a kindly village GP.

“The thing sticking up,” he explained.

The mask soon slipped and he ranted “of course you turn it bloody anticlockwise” before turning to someone in a crowded public bar and scowling: “The moron’s going to flood the whole street.”