Do things go in threes, and is this the end of it?

Let me go back to Saturday when the sink started backing up and it transpired that the septic tank was full. (Ah, the joys of living in the country!) - Pumped out Monday morning.

Monday evening the chimney catches fire. Not badly - just a few sparks from a little soot fire about four feet up, but enough to have to clear the fire from the grate and let the chimney go cold. Also enough for Josh and Jake to paint lurid word pictures for everyone who doesn't know the truth. The sweep comes on Friday morning.

Tonight I am in the bathroom when the light goes out: not a bulb which would have been marginally irritating, but a broken wire - so it's cleaning my teeth by candle-light tonight.

The dishwasher has on three occasions decided to break down on Christmas Eve. Is this something to which I can look forward this year, or have these three irritants been in lieu?

An irritant of a different sort: a tits and bums site was 'discovered' on Joe's list of favourites by his little sister. A trawl through history shows that it first appeared this afternoon between a free games site visited by Josh and a shopping site visited by Jess, and at a time when Joe was listening to music on vinyl in another room and nowhere near the computer. (Why are they all in my house? They have got a home to go to - honestly!) My guess is that the site came up with the games and Josh alone or Josh and Jess together decided to frame Joe 'for a laff'. Father, who is very much of a puritan, is furious to put it mildly.

In answer to a question about passions on another blog I said that chopping wood was a great way to sublimate anger. I was chopping wood this afternoon even before the computer incident and before the bathroom light failed. I shall either go out all day alone tomorrow or chop enough wood to last until the new year.