We threw a leaving party for Colin, Lorraine and Louise (the latest BBC redundancies) last night. Wendy was in charge of handing out the gifts, all tastefully wrapped in posh Avdea paper bags. Shame she didn't notice the candle which set one of the pressies on fire.....

I just got back from Paris tonight to find that my store of UHT milk had leaked in the cupboard. Somehow the packaging had been damaged and leaked milk all over the shelf. Matthew (bless him) spotted the milk dripping out and mopped it all up. Four out of the six cartons were ruptured, so it was quite a mess.

A previous Eurostar trip is etched on my memory as one of the founding events of this Misfortune Report- when the train was delayed by 6 hours and I returned home to find a water leak had brought my bedroom ceiling down in my absence.

The moral: don't use Eurostar. Things leak when you do.