My kingdom for...

Gooseberry jam sounded nice, so I had some on my bread and butter (now bread and jam, of course). It tasted somewhat like plum jam and no doubt I shall think up a reason to have more tomorrow.

Then I felt the wee pip wedged in the gap between my left upper canine and the next tooth along whose official name I've not been formally introduced to. We had some cocktail sticks in the kitchen drawer last time I checked, so I went to pressgang one into service as a toothpick.

The first thing I found was a seamstress's measuring tape wrapped around a horse's hoof. Behind the horse's hoof was a ratchet screwdriver and a packet of dried mealy worms. There was a tube containing a springy-out comedy snake. A clown's shoe. Two packets of thumbtacks without the pointy tack bit. A number ten staple gun with a box of number 16 staples. A spray on dressing for burns. A yoke for lifting fried eggs out of frying pans which Herself calls a spatula and I call an egg lifter. A packet of balloons printed with "Happy 1953!". A small yogi, one eye opened irritably as I disturbed his meditations. A chorus of wind chimes that randomly played the theme from a Looney Tunes cartoon when first picked up. A bottle of hair removal lotion. A bottle of hair restoring lotion. A kitchen knife without a blade or a handle. A doorway to a wonderous land filled with fashion-conscious flying snakes. A tyre iron suitable for a JCB excavator. A bottle of nail-polish remover with a false nail stuck to its lid. A single pop sock.

But do you think I could find the cocktail sticks?