"We have them in black," said the sales assistant, a perceptive woman who had obviously recognised me as a member of Sauce, Curry and Gravy Splatterers International.
   "Would tomato sauce show on black suede?" I asked.
   "Perhaps just a little," she said.
   "I don't suppose they come in red," I asked.
   "No," she replied as the prospect of selling me half a dozen dining table chairs faded like an old gravy stain.

I only owned three chairs. Two and a half really, as the back kept falling off one.

There were also the two folding canvas chairs but attempts to conscript them as dining room chairs failed when it was discovered they were so short-legged that anybody sitting in them was unable to see over the table edge.

Given that only the tops of the heads of two dinner guests were visible and that the occupant of the backless chair kept disappearing from sight, legs protruding from the carpet, dinner party conversation tended to be rather spasmodic, being comprised of muted mumbles from below the table and cries of "Aaarrrggghhh" as the backless sitter plunged to the floor.

So I opted to entertain my meagre half circle of friends at the well used outdoor setting which some friends had so kindly donated. "Just watch one of the chairs," warned my mate. "It's a bit dodgy." So I put one of the six aside and invited people around for drinks.

Not a half hour later, the familiar cry of "Aaarrrggghhh" rent the stillness of the evening as a chair splintered beneath one of the females present, sending her crashing to the floor, glass still clutched valiantly in her fist. Her feet ended up planted on the table, one on either side of a bowl of potato chips.

   "You bastard," she moaned which I thought to be a rather harsh judgement.
   "I wonder," I muttered, as she struggled to her feet and began picking splinters of shattered chair from her hair.

"Imagine that," I said, inspecting the chair which I had earlier placed carefully in the corner. "I put the wrong one aside. This one's fine," I said to the woman, who was now limping towards the bathroom, there to better inspect her newly acquired contusions and fractures.

So I looked around for a dining room table and chairs and choked on the price tags, but it was sentiment that foiled me in the end. How could I abandon my existing table?

My first memories of it were in my grandmother's house in Paddington as a child and apart from an extremely worn armchair, it was my sole piece of memorabilia from the home of the grandparents who had once loomed so large in my life.

The table had to stay. I'd replace the chairs which would seem like a simple enough thing to do, but they were ugly or expensive - or both.

Also, given my propensity for dispensing variously sized portions of food and sauce over and about the dining room furniture while eating, any upholstery which could not be hosed down at the end of the meal was out of contention.

The need to find a plumber provided a temporary distraction from the problem, for the shower was becoming rebellious. When I'd moved in it had been perfectly disciplined but now, with the mortgage shackles firmly secured, it was in revolt, spraying water directly into my eyes whenever activated.

It mattered not in which direction it was pointed, for its spray would invariably find your eyes and blast you with a blinding jet of water.

Tiring of stumbling out of the shower, falling over the toilet, banging my head on the mirror and slumping semi-conscious into the hand basin every morning, I had the shower replaced.

It was then that I ill-advisedly accepted an offer as a part-time hairdresser.

"Help me," said my girlfriend as she attacked her hair with an electric hair waver designed to wave the hair which she had just straightened with her electric hair straightener.

"Love to," I said, reaching out and taking the proffered hair straightener. I discovered quickly that you are supposed to grasp them by the handle rather than the shaft, which is heated to approximately 300°C.

The blisters have almost healed and I'm told the scarring will disappear eventually.

I subsequently bought leather covered chairs and while I have been advised against hosing them down after use, they have already passed the sauce-curry-gravy test and that's how, if you were wondering, I spent the last two weeks since returning from Russia.