House!(work)

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As some of you may know, my good lady wife has had surgery on her foot which has rendered her immobile for a few weeks. (And on crutches for a further eight weeks).

Thi has resulted in my adopting the role of house husband. Now, for most people that's a fairly trivial thing but for me it was quite a shock. As I'm usually at work for 13hrs a day I never get to see what happens during the day and what's involved in maintaining our household (which consists of my wife, me, our seven year old daughter, 2 cats and a tank of fish.)

Those who know Sam (my wife) will know that she earns her sometime nickname of Monica, after the character from Friends. She likes things (overly) clean and tidy. Something I've never been accused of, and never will. So, with some trepidation, I took a few weeks off to assume the role whilst Sam sat and did nothing, as directed by her surgeon.

It's frikkin relentless! There's *always* something that needs doing. I know this is old news to most people, but hells teeth, I've spent years avoiding all this crap and now there's no hiding. I've been educated in the ways of the washing machine (stick two different liquids in it, stuff loads of almost dirty clothes in and press the go button), the tumble drier (take damp clothes from washing machine and stuff em in, turn the dial thingy to 60 and press another go button), the dishwasher (put dirty stuff in, add a tablet thingy, turn the dial to 6 and press yet another go button) and even fried my first egg. Which resulted in a demonstration of how it *should* be done a week or so later.

The main issue as I see it, is a fundamental difference in how men and women do housework. (Yes, I know I'm generalising a tad, but it's my blog so tough banannas)

Sam seems to have lots of rules such as if something has been worn twice then it needs washing. I think that results in too much washing and prefer the more male approach of if you can't tell it's dirty (by either sight or smell) then it is in fact not dirty and in no need of washing at all.

This extends to all aspects of housework and other tasks such as feeding the cats. (They'll soon learn to ask...)

I suspect that over the coming weeks we'll both soften on our approaches and meet in the middle, but so far it's been.... educational.

Waffle about: