"I got a cutlery tray!" I beamed, with perhaps more excitement than is necessary under the circumstances. But we had been "managing" with knives, forks and spoons all mixed up in an old Kit-Kat tin (the mini Kit-Kats had long since been consumed), so it seemed like progress.

It had only cost a couple of quid, and had allowed me to compartmentalise the cutlery appropriately and neatly. I had noticed, when loading the tray, that some of the knives were slightly too long for the originally chosen compartment, so I'd had to move them to the longer slot, to the right of the spoons. From left to right: forks, spoons, knives. Teaspoons at the bottom, perpendicular to their larger cousins.

I waited for the reaction.

"Very good, dear..." said Big, dumping his coat and going upstairs to get changed from work. He hadn't yet looked inside the drawer. I returned to staring at my Scrabulous board, searching for that elusive "bingo".

Later on, when putting the cutlery away:

"No, love, this just won't do." he stated, shaking his head with some bewilderment.
"What?" I replied with an innocent air, yet knowing exactly what was coming.
"I'm afraid there's going to have to be a régime change in the cutlery drawer." He looked at me, with his school teachery look. I looked back questioningly and raised my eyebrows. Thought I'd humour him for a while.
"The knives. They're in the wrong place! It should be: knives, forks, spoons, from left to right"
He began shuffling the cutlery around.
"Honey!"
He stopped, momentarily.
"Honey, some of the knives are too long - they won't fit in the other slots, I already tried. I'm afraid they'll have to stay there..."

The look on his face was like that of a lost child.

"I'm sorry, love,"

I distracted him with a plate of food. Always works, at least for a while.

The next morning, Big had left for work some time ago and I began preparing my breakfast. As I reached for a spoon in my newly organised cutlery drawer, I noticed something.



The whole tray had been turned upside down and rearranged, purely so that the knives could take their "rightful" place, on the left.

For someone who is quite happy to live in utter chaos in so many ways, the man is surprisingly strict about cutlery placement.