An eventful weekend, for all the wrong reasons.

Daughter come over – she’d been having trouble with her health again and has been in hospital. So she came over mainly to get some rest, but also to bury a couple of her guinea pigs, who had just died. I attempted to help by going out to the garage to find a spade for her. As I was pulling the garage door open, BANG. My daughter had got into the garage by the other entrance, and had started pushing my door open – at exactly the same time as I’m on the other side, pulling. The result? I’m on my arse, cries of pain, cuts and bruises to my shin.

Then, on Sunday, I went through to the kitchen, without anybody telling me that they’d just wiped the floor and that it was currently quite slippery. So, over on my ass again. So yesterday was spent in a fair amount of pain.

My family is funny about these things. They act as though, because these things are all accidents, that they hadn’t intended for these things to happen, that they are no big deal. That in both cases I’m lying on the floor in pain doesn’t seem to matter.

It reminds me of murder and manslaughter – as long as there is no intention there, it’s okay. Forget that you still have a dead body lying there.

It is my daughter’s 18th birthday in a couple of weeks, and there is an amount of money, from my late mother, I’d always said she could have it when she hit 18. In fact, I’d got so tired of hearing the drip-drip of “can I have some money for such-and-such?” that I’d tried to signed everything over to her six months ago, but it turns out that there are forms to sign. Daughter had obviously found this out when she tried to access the cash.

She didn’t mention this until Sunday night, having been here all weekend. So, I get up on Monday, and this all needs to be sorted on that day, the last of her visit. So I’m basically driven to the bank.

To cap it all, daughter was unhappy at the amount of money in the account. I mean, given the current tiny interest rates, I didn’t think it had done too badly, but Daughter was grumpy. Possibly she’d forgotten about the times that I’d already allowed her to dip into the account for stuff?

Anyway, it all angered me. Daughter is never satisfied, regardless. It has always been thus. No matter how much you do for her, it is never enough, she always wants more. In the face of this ingratitude, my wife reminded her that she’s lucky to get this. Most kids don’t get anything.

For sure, I’m not inclined to do anything for her. Not after all the trouble she’s caused for me, although I do feel duty-bound to carry out my mum’s wishes.But I’m hoping it is now all over.

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I must also pay tribute to Peony, one of our hens, who died last week. We were both quite upset, as Peony was our favourite hen, very friendly and likeable. Peony was always the brave one to come into the house, once she walked all the way through the lounge and ended up in the hallway!

I’m not sure what happened, she seemed fine one day but was gone the next. She’s the first chicken who’s died on us, so we have no idea if this is typical. But she was only around three years old, so not particularly old. It is very sad.