In our little family cleanliness, or the lack thereof, is an ongoing topic of conversation. Between me (reasonably clean but not fanatic by any stretch of the imagination), Mouse (very clean but he's a cat so that's all relative) and otter (fanatically clean but in a very unpredictable way at least to Mouse and me) there is most days a brittle balance.

Sometimes that balance gets tested such as when the bathroom needs to be cleaned. The bathroom has cleaning duties for both otter and myself and to make matters worse, it's where Mouse's litterbox is located.

Over a period of several years we have worked out a routine that works reasonably well. The trick is that we never ever clean anything together. otter and I cleaning together is like matter and anti-matter colliding and for those without any physics education: that's really, really bad.

Sometimes in order to have a happy marriage you need to do things separately…:-)