Why is it that everything breaks at once? First the toaster blew up (it really did: there were flames and everything), then the kettle went. A few days later Misery Guts managed to raze the tip off our most useful kitchen knife (it clearly wasn’t designed for opening oysters – pictured). Then when I was making up our bed at the weekend I realised the white brushed cotton sheet that was part of a wedding present isn’t really white or brushed anymore, and has a hole. A fraying hole.

I don’t mind so much about the toaster and the kettle – they were 12 years old – but almost three years into our marriage I’m not so happy about the knife and the bedding. Surely these things should last longer than that? They might be residing in a drawer in their caravan, but my parents still have knives they were given as a wedding present 37 years ago, and I’m fairly certain bedding still exists too.

Perhaps these things just have a limited life expectancy these days. Even so, it’s not just household appliances breaking down in our house; three years into married life and Misery Guts and I are breaking down too. In the last month he sprained an ankle which caused him to put his back out, and in a routine assessment of my hair with a pair of tweezers before visiting the hairdresser – a job that used to take two minutes and involve the extraction of a handful of grey hairs – I discovered said grey hairs have now turned white and multiplied. Oh, and I managed to catch an eye and ear infection at the same time.

So now it’s my nerves that are fraying, as well as the hole in the sheet. The question is: do we have a limited life expectancy too? And what will break next?