Once upon a time, in a tiny land called New Zealand, far, far away at the arse end of the world, a young couple lived with a flatmate.
The woman and the flatmate were best friends and while the man was working late most nights, the women did the shopping, made the meals, used the dishwasher and kept the flat tidyish. (Don’t worry, he did his share in the garden at the weekend.) But, all things must change, and the time came when the couple needed their own space, and the friend went out to make her own way in the world.
The man still worked late some nights, and wasn’t particularly proficient in the kitchen anyway, or even interested. So a deal was struck. The woman was to do the cooking and the man was to do the cleaning. However, first time up, he found the vacuuming was too hard on his bad back. So they hired a fairy godmother called Mary to come and clean once a fortnight, and he did the dishes and kept the house clean and tidy in between.
This wasn’t always an easy task, as the woman was prone to being a bit untidy. After she “made magic in the kitchen” it often looked like a bomb had gone off. And some days, the mere sight of her desk was enough to send him into a major depression!
So saying they lived happily ever after might not be entirely accurate!
Fast forward to 2018, and they’re still together after nearly 30 years, and haven’t killed each other yet, so that’s close enough to Happy Ever After for me.
But disaster has struck! Fairy godmother (mark 3) has gone on holiday to Canada for 6 weeks for a family wedding. Fairy godmother isn’t as young as she was, and is prone to backache and migraines herself, and sometimes it’s three weeks between visits. So they have already learnt how dirty things can get without her.
The (no longer young) couple know it’s time to pull their socks up and do their own vacuuming and toilet cleaning.
A twist in the tale
The man’s mother was about to turn 80 and mentioned, in passing, an interest in robotic vacuum cleaners. Of course, she would never buy one herself, but that gave them a clue she was starting to find her cleaning a bit tedious. Given that they were very low on ideas of how to suitably celebrate the major birthday, they jumped on the idea, and sneakily ordered the cheapest one available – an iRobot Roomba 637 - on sale.
It arrived the next day, and they decided to try it out. And they loved it! It was like a new pet, but a useful one who cleaned fur out of the carpet instead of depositing it. Other people had complained that they were loud, but the couple thought it was more of a purr, and much quieter than the regular vac that the poor fairy godmother had to use.
Yes, true, they did have to move some things out of its way, but that created much less back strain than using the old Miele. And they were astonished at how much dirt, dust and fluff it picked up, even though the woman had vacuumed only two days before.
Little Roo loves going under the bed
He's finished with the rug and ready to do the rest of the hall:
How were they ever going to part with little Roo?
Which brings us to today…
We’re not going to part with it! We're going to buy another one. 
So we have the e-voucher and will order another little Roo first thing tomorrow. All going well it will arrive Tuesday morning, just in time to take it with us to the birthday lunch.
And never fear, there will still be work for our fairy godmother when she returns!
Thanks for reading
To maintain Mary's privacy, her avatar was created by 
