I like to live under the impression that my life is calm. Here are some of the things I am being calm about today.

• The guy is coming to look at the water pump on Tuesday, when neither Mr Twinky nor I are free.
• The burglar alarm company can't make an appointment. I hate to imagine what they do in an emergency.
• I ordered computer parts from the UK in December, and although they have apparently been shipped they haven't arrived.
• Our telephone isn't working. Again.
• Some of our friends think it's perfectly acceptable to call us after ten at night, so we are forced to get an answering machine to screen our calls.
• We booked our holidays, and they chap we were going to visit in Switzerland has now been moved to Hong Kong, starting from the day after we get to Switzerland. And we can't move the flights.
• Work is incredibly crazily busy, and I'm determined not to work this weekend.
• We're getting involved in a property transaction in the UK, that involves some quick decisions. We're not necessarily comfortable with quick decisions.

Other than that, there's not much happening.

Warning: This post may not be suitable for those of a squeamish nature, as it talks about throwing up

When you're a kid, you throw up all the time. You down your juice too fast, then you go really really fast on the roundabout and all of a sudden four or five of your best friends need to be dry cleaned. Throwing up is really cool because sometimes you can discern what it is you've been eating, and it is incredibly embarrassing for your parent, guardian, or whoever pays the cleaning bill.

If you're a bit older, throwing up is usually caused by viral infections, but can also be self-induced either through alcohol poisoning or through sticking two fingers down one's throat in the mistaken belief that looking like a stick is superior to looking healthy.

I don't throw up.

It's not much of a claim to fame, as claims to fame go, but I generally can't bring myself to throw up. There have been times when I've tried to make myself throw up, due to an encroaching feeling of drunkenness-related nausea - in particular the great Retsina evening on 1987. Usually I get no further than what is colloquially referred to as 'a big spit'. Indeed, even when I've had stomach infections, I've not thrown up.

There's a joke in here about gag reflexes, but I digress.

Since my late teens, I have thrown up on exactly three occasions.

Age 17, outside the Preservation Halls in Edinburgh, due to an excess of alcohol.

Age 27, outside the Preservation Halls in Edinburgh, due to an excess of alcohol.

And a couple of weeks ago, after Mr Twinky and I picked up a viral infection over the New Year. Mr Twinky was pretty sick, and I was pretty much unaffected. Or so I thought for 24 hours, when the familiar, yet unfamiliar feelings woke me. Now, because I throw up as rarely as I do, this was an exciting thing. I burst out of bed with an uncomfortable cry as I stubbed my toe on a carefully planted hairdryer, paused to get dressed in case I met any of the four other people staying in the house at the time, hurled myself in to the bathroom, adopted the position. And waited. Nothing happened. I had a cough. I had a big spit. Nothing. I had another cough. And it happened. Blah splurge food porcelain acidic taste and somewhere in there... complete muscular relaxation.

And then I went back to bed for a bit. Then I got up and did the whole thing again. I sat and read my book for a while, and once I was convinced that the excitement was all over for the evening.

And within 18 hours, I felt fine, albeit a little weak from lack of food. I missed a nice bit of lamb, too.

We've had a problem with our central heating. The central heating guy can't do anything about it - he came, he went up a ladder, he serviced our boiler, and he was wearing nasty, nasty underwear.

It's a leak, you see. Somewhere between the boiler (at the front door) and the radiator in the bathroom, water leaks out of our supposedly closed system, so we have to top it up regularly. This is a pain in the bum to do, but also means that somewhere in our flat, water is leaking.

Look, water is leaking from their pipes...
It is called shite workmanship. It is a sign of their weakness.

Between Sunday and Tuesday, the water pump that makes sure that we have pressure in all of those good places where we want water pressure died. This isn't a good thing. It means showers are weak and tepid, and I now take twice as long in the morning to get rid of embarrassing stains before I can come to the office.

So Mr Twinky went for a look at the pump, to determine the model, so we could work out where to get it serviced. He couldn't make out the name on the pump because of dust, but luckily a drop of water fell on it, and he could make out the name.

Hang on, thought he. A drop of water?

So, last night we dismantled the cupboard where our boiler lives, found a whole load of pipes that we can't really see a point to, and decided that it would be best if we called out a plumber.

The expense of doing this is nothing compared to the thrill of having found a leak without having to take our walls down to hunt for it. And it means that Mr Twinky gets to go home at lunch time and hang out with Fintan, the rangy plumber with dark hair, blue eyes, precocious tufts of hair poking out of his collar and sleeves, and a wicked sparkle in his eye.

Probably.

Last night, we watched Proof, the ambitious new drama from RTE. This tale of corruption, journalism, prostitution and human traffic is a cheery contemporary piece, and one of the main characters has a fantastic flat, apparently.

Fifty-eight minutes in to the hour, there it was. Blurry and out of focus, but definitely our kitchen.

And as the closing credits rolled, the phone started ringing...