Column: I'd rather brush all this under the carpet!

However, it was only a few moments and then I was faced with a verbal torrent demanding to know what I was up to – but that was after she had finished laughing!

Let me explain.

Emma had walked in to my livingroom to find me in what she described as an “unusual” position. The very fact it involved a vacuum cleaner was odd to start with as me and housework are not usually mentioned in the same breath.

“What on earth are you doing?” she queried, as she saw me bent double over the equipment.

“Trying to find out how on earth this thing works,” I 
retorted.

“Do you not plug it in and switch it on?”

“Emma,” I said in my most indignant tone, “do you not think I’ve tried that already. It is plugged in but I can’t find the switch to make it work.”

“Look at the instruction manual ...”

The words were hardly out of her mouth when I bit back: “Don’t you think I would if I had one.”

I then reined myself in to explain that I had been bemoaning to her gran that I would have to find the cash for another cleaner as my trusty old model had spluttered to a halt.

“They cost so much money and there’s so much choice nowadays. I really don’t know what to get.”

“Oh I’ve got one you can have,” she replied.

“What are you going to do? I know you have Jean who comes in to help with your housework but she needs to use it.”

“She said the one I had was too heavy for her so I bought one of those fancy new Dysons. It looks like a stick. A very fetching shade of pink it is too. She says it’s great.”

Bemused that my mother was spending several hundred pounds to keep her cleaner happy, I gratefully accepted the offer of her redundant vacuum cleaner.

However, once I got home I couldn’t get the darn thing to work.

I looked all over it for a button to push that would start it up but to no avail. In fact, one button that I pushed saw the dust holding cylinder fall off depositing more mess all over my carpet.

Cue Emma’s arrival and my admittedly rather bad-tempered response to her question.

But thankfully she was able to come to my rescue by searching online for the 
instruction manual for this model. She was able to tell me that it was tucked away at the bottom.

However, I was more concerned by her comment: “You get more like gran every day.”