Today began okay - out of bed and downstairs to a full cooked breakfast - and then it started to go wrong. Mrs T must take some blame; she could have chosen a better time to start a serious discussion about ways that the business could move back into profit.

And the radio station choosing just that moment, as Mrs T was placing the eggs and bacon and beans on my plate, to play The Laughing Policeman didn't help at all!

The song took me back - Saturday morning in Pa Tailer's house, 12 years old, my mother was serving up the same kind of cooked breakfast that Mrs T was handling right now - my sister sitting opposite began to giggle. So, to make her worse I joined in the chorus and her shoulders began to shake, it went down to her arms and over went her orange juice, Pa T joined in, Ma T tutted noisily and said something about being up since six and the more she scowled the more we laughed and then, without any warning at all, my mother emptied our breakfasts in the waste bin and left the room moodily.

That is the 'place' I was in when the first verse ended and the smile on my face reached the ceiling. Mrs T, like my mother before her, couldn't see the joke, the laughing chorus started again and I joined in again and my dear wife emulated my mother except she tipped the plateful out in front of me and stood glaring, hands on hips.

I exploded in mirth, which was probably not the right thing to do.

Ten minutes later I was walking to the showroom, Mrs T needed the car to...well, to do something...and turning the corner, still whistling the tune, I saw that all the showroom lights were on, my Croatian cleaner, Sadie, was already at it.

She's a game lass Sadie - speaks about nine words of English: "Cup Tea of, Mr Tailer?" She asked and I nodded. With much miming I told her the story of my lost breakfast, smart girl, she was into the Petty Cash and down to the butchers and before I could say: "Where's all the float money gone from this cash box?" Then she was serving me with two lovely bacon butties complete with butter and brown sauce to go with my cup of tea. Wonderful girl, don't know what I'd do without her.

I bit into the butty, the phone rang, I spluttered into it.

"What are you eating?" It was Mrs T., "never mind, I've been thinking," she informed me, "we need to cut costs and with so few people coming into the showroom these days you can shut down the heating." That woman has a real talent for upsetting me.

"You what (don't pause she'll only answer back) I can't do that I'll ruddy well freeze that's a daft idea". I had to stop for an intake of breath at some point.

"No, I've thought of that", she says "you have no drawings to do have you, so to help you keep warm we can let the cleaner go - I just phoned the agency, we'll pay her to the end of the week but she'll finish today, you tell her."

"But, how is getting rid of the cleaner going..to...keep....me...... warm?" I said, while thinking, 'who will make my cups of tea'?

Her answer cut through me like a gravedigger's spade in a Cemetery lawn's turf, "you can do the cleaning - you've nothing else to do!"