It’s turning into one of those ‘the sky is falling down’ kind of weeks.

I’m not sure if it’s just me and Chicken Licken, or if everybody gets overtaken by the same feeling of doom every now and again. It feels as if everything in your house is breaking down at the same time and you’ll never be able to sort it all out.

It started with me temporarily losing £400, and ended with my daughter pouring a litre of orange juice into her nearly new, beautiful Macbook.

Sadly I cannot tell you exactly what happened to the laptop. My daughter made me promise. She was so ashamed and upset by the depths of her own stupidity that it was several days before she could bring herself to speak about it, even to me. She has not told any of her friends and only told me on condition I tell no-one else. And the effort of keeping a funny story secret is nearly killing me. It goes against all my journalistic instincts.

All I can say is that we are not talking about a bit of a spillage, but the whole carton, upside down. The screen and keyboard were totally awash and the damage is irreparable.

The worst thing was that her dad — who gave her the Macbook to do her A-level coursework — was abroad on holiday when it happened. She had to wait 10 excruciating days to face him, own up and find out if he’d bought extra cover insurance for it. In the meantime, the prophets of doom kept telling her that you can’t insure mobiles and computers against spills.

On one hand I felt sorry for her obvious distress, and tried to reassure her that it would be OK. But on the other I was quite glad that she’d had to stew and think for a while.

Thankfully, her dad got back from holiday last night and is confident the damage will be covered.

And she is full of remorse and has made all sorts of promises about never, ever again, allowing liquids and computers into the same room. I think she’s learned a valuable life lesson.

It reminded me of one of a teenage issue encountered by one of my many cousins (have I ever told you that I’ve got 45 cousins on my mother’s side alone? My mum’s Irish, and one of 10, and all her siblings had big families, with the exception of one, who was widowed at an early age).

This particular cousin lived in one of those upside-down houses, with one bedroom down on the ground level. Which was fine, until her son, who slept in the downstairs room, grew into a teenager.

Suddenly, he and his friends were coming and going at all times. And no matter how many times they were told to lock the front door, it was frequently left unlocked all night.

Afraid that they would all be burgled, killed in their beds, or worse… my cousin and her husband came up with a cunning plan to teach their son a lesson.

While he was out one day, they staged a fake burglary and stripped his room of all valuables — guitar, stereo, computer. I’m not sure if they bothered pretending to mess it up because, being a teenager, he wouldn’t have been able to spot the difference. It probably looked tidier once they’d removed his stuff.

Anyway, they went to great lengths and hid everything in a friend’s garage and told their son that they’d informed the police, who’d said there was nothing they could do and that nothing was insured because the front door had been left unlocked…

He fell for it. And they kept up the charade for a couple of weeks, until they were sure that he’d finally accepted responsibility and started locking the door every night.

Anyway, enough about teenagers and their stupidity. They have excuses. Hormones and developing frontal cortexes. And coursework, exams, and too much alcohol and worries about university.

And now on to me, and my stupidity, and my hormones and my shrinking, ageing 50-year-old, pre-senile brain. And homework, housework, work work, too much alcohol and worries about university fees.

On Monday night I got home from work at the Herald and was cooking tea (when I say cooking, I mean putting a pizza in the oven) while two children were doing their homework in the kitchen and asking me for advice.

I was fine with the A-level English.

But my youngest son’s year four maths was beyond me. The mini-beasts were having a five-a-side football match. There were six-legged beetles, spiders with eight legs, centipedes and some other 40-legged creature. How many boots were involved, including substitutes, after a gang of lizards and an angry referee had devoured some of the players?

By this time my daughter had moved on from coursework to filling in a financial assistance application form for university.

I’d been speaking to a friend whose husband is something big in the city. She doesn’t work and has only one teenager. She was bemoaning the fact that she’s injured her leg and can’t play tennis at the moment. When I asked if she gets bored, she said that no, she had lots to do, sorting out her daughter’s university application.

I wasn’t sure whether to feel jealous or guilty. My daughter’s done it all by herself. Apart from a few long chats, and driving her to have a look at a couple of campuses, I’m afraid she’s been on her own.

So I should have been happy to be helpful when she was trying to fill in the form. But it was all too much — what with the referee eating three beetles’ legs (that’s minus 18 pairs of boots) and all. I was hungry and tired and all I wanted was to eat my pizza in peace, and listen to The Archers (Brian’s been at it again), and have a nice cup of tea.

Plus I was fed up with online applications. That’s how I lost £400. Temporarily.

I was wondering why I was suddenly so hard up at the end of last month. I thought it was the double birthday celebration.

But actually, I’ve just discovered, I’ve accidentally bought two tickets for Glastonbury. Which is good news, really.

I’ve never been to Glastonbury and so I’d registered, and sent off my passport photo, which everybody had to do this year before applying for tickets. But then I’d missed out on getting around to buy a ticket and they were all sold out.

Then, at the beginning of April, I had an email to say that a few last tickets were available online one Sunday morning at 9am. I tried. But I didn’t know that Michael Eavis only takes debit cards, not credit cards, and I was swearing at the computer and not understanding what the problem was.

Eventually the computer crashed and I gave up.

So it wasn’t until this week’s bank statement arrived that I saw the card payment was successful and realised where all my money had gone.

I was about to say I must get some new wellies, but writing this column has been therapeutic and my dark cloud of Chicken Licken gloom has drifted away… it’s going to be the sunniest Glastonbury ever.

The Herald Express story about Brixham butler Gary Lindley, who asked a court to remove his electronic tag and curfew so that he could go to work at Lady Arran’s Devon castle, has been all around the world since we first published it earlier this week.

Lady Arran said Gary makes the best scrambled eggs and it has sparked a huge online debate in The Guardian about how to get your eggs soft and fluffy (or rich and creamy, depending on your preference).

This morning there were 56 different suggestions (with a few people deviating into the area of black magic and witchcraft which is needed to get a perfectly poached egg).

My favourite recipe comes from online contributor GenghisKong, who says he eats this every morning, and it makes him a happy man. I think he may drop dead of a heart attack if he really eats that much cholesterol daily, but at least he’s happy.

Genghis’ scrambled eggs:

finely chop a couple of spring onions

thoroughly beat together three to four eggs with a glug of milk and plenty of black pepper

soften a knob of butter (as large as you like) in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan and briefly fry the spring onions over a medium heat

reduce the heat to very low and add the eggs, stir constantly over as low a heat as you have the patience for

when the eggs are nearly done (starting to thicken, but still slightly liquid) put a thick slice of bread in the toaster

butter the toast generously

eggs should be about done by now. Take them off the heat and add a pinch of salt and some fresh thyme.

give them one last stir and pour them over the toast

devour, but don’t think about the butter, calories or cholesterol.

It would be nice to know how Gary cooks his.