April 17, 2006

The problem with being waited on hand and foot, night and day, is that you start to get an over-sense of achievement when you carry out the most mundane of tasks.

(Notice I'm referring to you, here, instead of I, which is of course who I'm really talking about? Anyhoo...)

This afternoon, if all goes to plan, I shall be visiting TLT at her new home and will very possibly have a little drinkie-poo of wine. Or two.

But I will have the wine accompanied by the reassured knowledge that I have today performed what I believe the proletarians call "chores" around this here household.

You have to bear in mind that I generally do NOTHING around here. Absolutely nottin'. (Or nossin, as they say in Thailand, rather sweetly.)

I don't cook, I don't clean, I don't garden, I don't DIY, I don't launder, I don't iron, I don't pay bills, I don't pay rent, I don't change my bed, I don't pay for food yadda yadda yadda...

Basically, all the things you do, I don't.

(Er, although I do clean and dress myself, I hasten to add. In all the ways one is meant to.)

This is not necessarily a choice thing, though. It's just that sort of house. Things get done. And if anyone else tries to do them, chances are they're doing them wrong. Know what I mean?

I mean, do not misunderstand me, there is certainly something to be said for living like the world's most well-off vagrant (last night, for instance, brother and I enjoyed a warm salad of apple, black pudding and cider with a wholegrain mustard dressing, washed down rather nicely with two bottles of Campo Viejo Crianza Rioja (2003) while discussing what he might like to make me for my tea dinner tonight.)

Outside on that spinny thing in the garden (see? I don't even know what they're called) I can see a collection of my white double-cuffed shirts twirling in the breeze, waiting to be collected by said brother when he returns from working overtime later this afternoon. I genuinely would take them down myself, but 1) they're not dry yet and (much more importantly) 2) I don't know where they go - or at least, I don't know where the ironing pile resides.

Truly, I wasn't always like this. I can cook, I can iron and all the rest of it. But this is just the way it is at the moment, and there's not a great deal I can about it, so I might as well as enjoy it (even though I do, really, feel guilty about it most of the time).

Anyway, the chores.

1) I carried Mojo downstairs (because although he has artfully mastered walking up them, he sees no reason to learn about going down again). This is no easy feat as he weighs an absolute ton, and because I am to upper body strength what he is to pioneering new ways to fight cancer, I think I may have put my back out. (All say "ahhh").

2) I tidied up last night's debris (because for once, it wasn't done at an unearthly hour of the morning before he went to work).

3) I even sprayed cleaning thingy stuff on the dining room table and the kitchen worktops to make them shine! (I know. This is getting ever more pathetic, isn't it?)

4) I emptied the dishwasher and put all the plates away! (The queue to line up and punch me starts over there, madam. Please take a ticket.)

5) I filled the dishwasher up again with some plates and cups and things.

6) I'll take the dog for a drag. (This may not count as a chore as I might not, either.)

7) That's it.

PS: I think we're having lamb shanks (we do seem to eat an awful lot of lamb in this house. Perhaps we were shepherds in a former life? I wonder?). I can't really remember to be honest, because I ended up a bit pissed. (Well, quite a lot pissed, truth be told).

PPS: TLT will most probably blow me out now, as usual, and yes, I know, it will serve me bloody right, won't it?