My wife mustn’t see this column. Given that she doesn’t know how to turn on the computer, this may not be too difficult but I’m going to put something into the blogosphere which she isn’t going to like; there may be consequences at Warrillow Towers.
My female readers, on the other hand, do seem to approve; when I posted a Facebook status on this subject at the weekend, I had five keen admirers within a couple of hours.
The response didn’t exactly amount to offers of much-needed paid work, but you never know...even the biggest businesses have to start somewhere.
What am I rambling on about? Well......(takes deep breath....) I quite like doing housework.
There you are, I’ve said it. Mrs W will be appalled, dismayed, outraged. Ever since a certain well-known media conglomerate decided, in December 2009, that it could do without my journalistic skills, she has hoped that I would become a full-time house-husband.
As she still commutes to work every morning, she has hoped that I would spend my days filling the washing machine with baskets-full of dirty clothing, hanging clean clothes out on the line, doing the ironing, vacuuming, cooking; generally making sure that Warrillow Towers is spotless when she gets home at night.
Sadly, it hasn’t worked out like that. There are features to be sourced, reports to be written, contributors to be chased for copy, work opportunities to be pursued; in short, a living to be made.
So the dream of turning me into a full-time house-husband hasn’t happened and probably never will, with the result that a percentage of our weekend time has to be spent getting the house into good order before she goes back to work on Monday morning.
And that’s the bit that I will tentatively admit to ‘quite’ liking.
Let’s say, before we get into this, that I can’t iron. Some men will say it’s the only part of housework that they get on with but I’ve never got the hang of it. I’ve tried, but the incident where I accidentally left a hot iron on the ironing board and almost burnt the house down has probably put the skids under it for good.
I’m quite nifty with a vacuum cleaner, though; I can get right up to the floorboards and behind the settee and I do know how to move the beds to vacuum up the collected dust and cat hair (an essential skill in a house containing a very large long-haired cat).
I can polish furniture, as well. I don’t just polish around ornaments, I move them, while I’m fully conversant with the 14 different sorts of dusters on the market these days.
I thoroughly enjoy using the steam mop on our tiled kitchen and bathroom floors; pouring the boiling water into the machine and then mopping energetically as the machine offers up a satisfactory hissing sound.
All these things I can do in the manner of a proper husband. Mrs W and I regularly differ as to the frequency with which they have to be done, but I can and do play my part when the time comes.
After 20 years of marriage, we have housework worked out into the kind of game plan that would impress Sir Alex Ferguson. I know the bits that I can help with; there are areas of the field into which I wouldn’t dare to stray, for fear of getting the hairdryer treatment.
But the end result is usually success.
Warrillow Towers is never going to look like Buckingham Palace; as Arsene Wenger might bemoan, we don’t have the budget to bring in the big cleaners to achieve that. But we do what we can with the resources available and the sense of teamwork which results from a good session of housework is one of the things which should be at the bedrock of a good marriage.
Before I get assailed by angry parents I will, of course, say that the residents of Warrillow Towers are a husband and wife and a large cat. Things may be entirely different if we had two trouble-making children to contend with. But we are where we are and, unlike some men, I can admit that housework doesn’t fill me with dread. You can even do it in your natural state and, as keen naturists, we often have - after all, why get clothes covered in sweat, dust and furniture polish?
So there we are....my vacuuming secret is out. I shall await the consequences.
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