So, I have a glass of wine, a chicken salad, am home alone (30)

That's great, Sommer - travelling is one of the best way to educate oneself!

As a true Brit I only travel to educate others!

Ok, just joking......... I love travelling and meeting people from other cultures who enrich my life; I think long before the British Empire actually died I had a sneaky feeling that we brits weren't really the best at everything in the world and that 'foreign' food and maybe even foreign water wasn't going to give me the plague!

And ladies...wow! Foreign ladies have been my education in life!

Ok, Nina -

if you can't have a cute little lamb as a pet in an apartment; my advice is to buy a nice jar of mint sauce and put a nice label on it ( of your fluffy thingy that you've drawn AND coloured in all by yourself!)

You can take your mint sauce jar out of the cupboard whenever you feel like it! (e.g. when you feel lonely and have a meal you can place it on the table when you eat and have a nice cosy chat....... don't forget to tell it nice, soothing things).

However, should you one day decide to OPEN the mint sauce jar, you must then move it from the cupboard to the fridge - or the sauce will start growing funky molds and stuff and you won't ever feel the same way about it ever again!

(My advice is that it's best to 'keep the lid on' this sort of relationship).

I hope that this has been of help to you,

Yours sincerely,

P(et) P. Ython

Thank you very much for your considerate advice, Mr Ython. Normally I would certainly give it a try - only problem is... I don't l i k e mint sauce!! That kind of relationship would be doomed from the beginning...

Dear Nina3,

I have difficulty understanding your aversion to mint sauce.

Great civilisations have sprung up here and there in the Universe based on a deep understanding and symbiotic relationship with mint sauce.

Maybe something terrible happened to you in your childhood that you are suppressing; it is my considered opinion that no humanoid can be truly happy until he/she/it really enjoys the subtle pleasure of mint sauce indulgence.

I am not a professional, but can only refer you to a 'higher' authority on this delicate matter.

You could always elicite free advice from our own font of all CS knowledge Herr Conrad der Googleit or put all your life savings into a course of help with a Welsh psychiatrist of dubious reputation called Dai "the sauce" Jones. Dai is a great friend of mine who shares all his ill-gotten psychiatric gains with me down the pub on a Sunday afternoon... he hasn't had many clients lately and I'm getting a bit thirsty, so please help Dai (and myself indirectly).

You need help! get it NOW!

Baaaaa!

Yours truly,

Peter Py-Thong

Well, as much as I would find the insights of Dr Jones and Herr Conrad fascinating, I can make this a lot simpler. You see, I do know where this unbecoming aversion to mint sauce stems from...

It was on a family holiday one Easter to the beautiful country of Wales when I was a child. I remember the landscape being beautifully green, and also very wet. It wouldn't stop raining.

Nevertheless, we made an excursion to a sheep farm, to learn all about the countryside (we were clearly city folk, you see). After admiring the little cute creatures for a while, what did we see? Lo and behold - it was the little house next door, where they made their living from making mint sauce, pouring it into little jars, and selling it at the local market! Lovely!

To make a long story short; what was not so lovely was the huge vat of mint sauce, teetering a little too high off the floor for my liking - only held up by some rusty looking levers and stuff. And what do you know - as we went by to have a look, it snapped, and guess who got covered in the green, minty goo?... Yep...

I was scarred for life, I was. Can never eat a proper British lamb meal again... Although I hope all is not lost - I hope it might wear off in time, so I can again taste the tasty sauce and find it... tasty!

It is, I can now sit back and look at my home country from a whole different view point.

My worst fears are confirmed!

Your only hope now is with Dai 'the sauce' Jones...... it will take many months of excrutiating pain and suffering, but it shall be worth it in the end....my little lamb!