It has begun.

The cockroach epidemic that I joked about but never really took seriously has, in all seriousness, begun.

Whilst minding my own business earlier one ran at me from underneath the oven. I reacted with my typical lightning fast reflexes - pow! Luckily for the cockroach my lightning fast reflex was to jump back and flap for a while, whilst looking for something flat-ish to flatten-ish it with. Then as I was merrily hopping from one foot to the other it casually trundled back under the oven, where I watched it wandering back and forth for a while, before I remembered that I have to wait until it eats the poisoned food. The chap was most clear on that - don't kill them until they eat the poison, which makes no sense, because whether it's dead from poison or dead from slipper, it's still dead, right? Dead cockroachs being preferable to live ones (to me, probably not to it), and all.

So now I am sharing my kitchen space with a cockroach, who I can't kill even if I was allowed to because it's so damn fast. Before I remembered I wasn't supposed to kill it I did have a go at squishing it, but at the last second I was distracted by it cleaning its whiskers, which albeit gross made me remember that it's a creature rather than just an annoyance and it stayed my hand, as it were, for a moment too long, and it ran back under the oven, where I swear it turned round and looked at me reproachfully.

On a side note I just spoke to my mama back in Blighty who was convinced I had tonsilitus because I've had the snuffles and my tonsils swelled a bit. They've gone down now, but as she is still worried I tried to reassure her:
Amanda: It's alright Mum, they've already gone down.
Mum: But tonsils aren't supposed to do that!
A: Yeah, they are, the swell up now and then if you're ill.
M: But mine don't do that!
A: ... You don't have any. You had them out when you were little.
M: Oh yeah.

I love my mum.