I’ve been threatening to do this for a while. Pile up all the unread books I’ve got and take a photograph of them, just for giggles. So I did, and slightly scared myself. Clearly, I get far too much pocket money.

Here is Ellie’s to-be-read pile, in no kind of order, just how they came off the shelves. That’s over six feet four inches of books. Yes, I have just measured it; no, I do not think that is remotely sad.

This mountain of words does include some books I was given as presents Quite Some Time Ago, and a couple of them I’ve started and put down for whatever reason (Tad Williams’ River of Blue Fire, I’m looking at you here – and Trudi Canavan’s Magician’s Guild, don’t think you can hide at the back).

What it does not include is all the books I will have to re-read before I attempt to conclude various series, like the Dresden Files, and The Wheel of Time. What can I say, I have a terrible thing for completeness.

Whimper.

Still, they do say that the first step in overcoming addiction is admitting you have a problem.

Well, that’ll wake you up good and proper.

Wednesday is bin day here at Cooper Towers. When I opened the bedroom curtains this morning, I noticed that my beloved spouse, when he left for work at oh-my-god-o’clock, had neglected to put the blue recyclables bin out for collection. Not to worry, I thought; I’ll put it out after breakfast.

Except by the time I got down the stairs, I could hear the bin lorry in the next street. Oh noes!

So out I trot, barefoot but otherwise dressed, opened the gate and trundled this big 240-litre wheelie bin out to the path. Since wheelie bins are not the nimblest-handling things, I managed to trundle it over my left foot in the process.

More precisely, over my toes. And the bin was full.

All together now: owyabuggershitthathurts.

Sigh.

My mother-in-law was ruled by superstition. If she dropped a piece of cutlery on the floor, it would lie there until somebody else came into the house and picked it up for her – sometimes for days.

If two knives crossed on a plate, she’d spend the rest of the day waiting for a fight to start – and heaven help anyone who spilled the salt, or opened an umbrella indoors. Just as well I never told her Rob had seen The Dress before we got married, or I might never have heard the end of it.

But me? Not a superstitious bone in my body. I’ve never had a lucky pen to do the lottery, and if ladders are in my way I walk under them without a qualm. Dropped a teaspoon? I pick it up. If I’ve just come in from the rain, I leave my umbrella open to dry in the utility room because if I close it up wet it’ll go funky and smell bad.

I don’t even have any writing rituals. Some habits I’ve got into, maybe, like writing notes longhand, but not what you’d call rituals. Or so I thought.

Last night, making a cuppa, Rob fumbled the coffee jar and dropped it onto my favourite mug. This one:

and took a gurt chip out of the edge. And what was Ms Rational’s first thought? Sheer horror: how am I going to finish writing my books now?

[This space intentionally left blank for your gales of incredulous laughter]

I’ve had this mug a very long time. My best friend gave it to me years ago, for my birthday I think. I used to use it at work; first for its intended purpose, then, when I got sick of the horrible over-boiled taste of the water from the work kettle, as a pencil-pot on my desk. When I gave up the day job I started using it for tea again: it holds much more than the everyday mugs in the kitchen, which meant fewer trips up and down the stairs to refill it, and the handle was comfy to hold.

Now I am bereft. I know it’s only a thing, and things are not important, but I hadn’t realised just how accustomed I’d become to having it to hand whenever I was writing. Fortunately, it’s not terminally cracked and I can still use it, but clearly, its days are now numbered. This will not do.

Perhaps I can exploit my husband’s feelings of guilt and get him to buy me one of these: