Sunday. Gahhh!

My Mother had called me earlier in the week to say that her and Father were thinking of coming over at the weekend to see me, and drop off some of the piles of old stuff that's been congealing in my old bedroom for the past 10 years or so. She said that she'd email later in the week to confirm that they were coming and on what day etc. Since as of this morning I had ha no such email, I had made the (rash) assumption that they had decided not to come over after all. I would hence be able to look forward to a dull day of marking, reading and generally sitting around on my arse.

But then, just after midday I got a call saying that they were on their way and not only that, they would be at my flat in about ten minutes time. Ten minutes! That's not a lot of warning. First thing I had to get rid of all the whores I had a around for a party last night. And then finally get rid of that body that's been in my bath since "The Incident I Haven't Spoken About". Finally after a quick run around with the vacuum cleaner and a splash and dash washing up session I was ready to accept parental visitors.

Since my upstairs neighbours (who have two cars) were parked in my parking space, I advised my parents to park in theirs, a space which is next to mine. Whilst I realise that two wrongs don't make a right, I also realise "Hah, see how you like it". It was quite amusing when one of said neighbours returned half an hour later and I could see the look of frustration on his face as he realised his space had been taken. I'm not sure if he realised exactly what lesson he was supposed to have learnt there, but maybe he did.

I haven't met my upstairs neighbours - they only moved in last weekend. They have two very near identical crappy white cars. Like twin cars. As far as I know, they're just a couple of guys sharing a flat, but there's something wrong with them both having the same car. It wouldn't be quite so bad if they were a couple but I don't think they are. (Couples can get away with matching clothes, even if they do still look ridiculous. I think this applies to cars as well.)

Anyway, I took the parents into town for lunch. We went to Caesars for pizzas which were pretty decent though Mother complained about the lack of an apostrophe in the restaurant's name. It's lucky I hadn't take her to a pub featuring some of York's more inventive spelling and grammar.

I also discovered today that instant coffee does in fact go off if you leave it long enough. I think I have had my current jar for around 2 years - it would have been bought before my year of No Coffee in 2004. When I opened it today, there was a kind of fine fungus covering much of the coffee. Rather than brush this off and pretend it was ok, on the basis that boiling water kills everything, I threw the whole jar away and made proper coffee with beans and a grinder. Although to be honest, they tasted a little tasteless too and I suspect they may also need replacing.

So parents come and parents go. It's lucky they hadn't decided to come yesterday - they'd have found me hiding in bed nursing a bally awful hangover. I'm glad that went away.