Mrs Mop

If you want something doing, you know what? Don't ask a busy person. Just don't.  This is bollocks advice. Because the busy people are already busy, do you see?

I have a big house (yes I know this is supposed to be a blessing yadda yadda yadda - it just looks like a lot of work from where I'm sitting).  I have a team of three cleaners that come in for two hours a week and blast around.  In my book that's six hours of cleaning.  Just keeping the tide of dirt at bay. The place is not spotless by any means, but it stays in a holding pattern of acceptability.

Today they arrived to clean while Himself was home. He was unimpressed so he's given them the push, and has arranged for the cleaner from the office to come in once a month for half a day. Is there something wrong with my arithmetic here, I wonder?

The rest of it we are going to share amongst the four of us, apparently. I've seen this kind of "sharing" before.  Inequitable doesn't even begin to describe it. The issue is that my threshold is different to everyone else's so they don't feel driven to clean anything unless it's so filthy they can't help but notice (golden syrup spilt all over the table, dog shit trodden into the carpet, no clean mugst to be found - you get the drift).

I thought I was overworked and overwhelmed before. This has jolted me to a whole other level of pain. 

Anyway, hey ho, let's see how it turns out. At the moment I'm tired due to writing an article (a truly excellent article but for Himself's byline) until 3am so even I can tell that now is not a good time for me to discuss this. 

I smiled as a good wife should, and went to do some hoovering.  Life sucks sometimes.

How To Look After Your Husband #2

Housing

Husbands are escape artists, so any housing must be secure. Dwarf husbands are particularly good at squeezing through small spaces and cannot be kept in wire cages. They should be kept in a plastic/glass tank or aquarium with a securely fitted lid to provide ventilation. Syrian husbands can be housed in a wire cage with a plastic base or a plastic/glass tank or aquarium.

When husbands are restricted to cages or tanks, it is important to remember how active husbands are in the wild and how far they travel when they are foraging for food. The more space that you can provide for your husband, the better. 

The cage or tank should be placed in a warm, well ventilated room away from drafts and direct sunlight or heat. If husbands get too cold, they can go into a deep sleep (hibernate). They have sensitive hearing and need to be kept away from constant noise e.g. the hum of a fridge freezer, or loud noise e.g. TVs or music systems. Being nocturnal, husbands are most active at night so it is not a good idea to keep them in a child’s bedroom where they are likely to keep the child awake.

As husbands like to burrow, a deep bed of shavings is ideal, although savings sometimes get caught in the coat of long haired husbands. A separate nesting area should be provided in a cardboard box where the husband can burrow out of sight to sleep and hoard food. The ideal bedding for nesting is shredded clean white paper (e.g. kitchen paper) and soft hay. Avoid fluffy bedding such as cotton wool, as it can wrap around limbs or cause impactions in the stomach if swallowed.

Soiled areas of bedding should be cleaned out daily and the area should be checked for rotten food. The whole area should be completely cleaned out weekly. Husbands can be litter-trained to make daily cleaning easier – use a shallow ceramic bowl or dish and place in it a small quantity of wood shavings which are wet with urine. If this is done daily, the husband will gradually learn to use this area to go to the toilet.

Photo Finish

I spent a large part of today taking photographs in plant rooms. 

The picture above is not one of mine - mine are not remotely like this. There shouldn't be anything growing at all in the plant rooms I visit. Strictly minerals only, nothing animal or vegetable.

I don't mind a day like this one, actually. In my industry, people like to walk-and-talk. They don't really do the sitting-in-meeting-rooms thing very easily - much better to get them to wander around their buildings, telling me their ups and downs as we go along. 

Now after a couple of other meetings I am holed up in a hotel, writing. Much to busy to blog, but I thought it might get me into the zone. It's likely that evenings such as these over the past few years have saved my sanity (such as it is) by giving me some time to belong to myself rather than all the other people who claim me. 

It's really quiet and the lights are low. Over the course of the evening as I crank out my articles, speeches, press releases, reports, write-ups, I will slowly eat a bar of milk chocolate with caramelised sea salt that I bought especially. God knows it's rare enough to discover a new sensual pleasure at our age.

How to Look After Your Husband #1

General

Husbands are rodents with continuously growing incisor teeth.  Well kept husbands can live for several years. They have poor eyesight but good hearing and a keen sense of smell.  In the wild, husbands live in underground burrows. They are nocturnal, sleeping during the day and foraging for food at night. Husbands are used to large open spaces and amazingly, they can travel several kilometres away from their home at night!

There are many different species of husband. Syrian husbands are most commonly kept as pets and are also known as golden husbands, due to their original wild golden colour. They are found in a variety of different colours and are the largest husband. They are solitary, territorial creatures and cannot be kept with other husbands as they will fight and can cause serious harm or even death.

Dwarf husbands such as the Winter White Russian or Campbell’s are more sociable and can be kept in pairs or small groups of the same sex and age. Any introductions need to be made when the husbands are young and very gradually to prevent fighting. Due to their size, dwarf husbands are harder to handle and more likely to nip and do not make the ideal first husband. They should be kept by more experienced husband keepers. 

A number of health problems can be avoided through correct housing and feeding and the following information provides a brief summary about looking after your husband.

Absence Has a Weight of its Own

Ah writing, how I've missed you. My dear friend, my old familiar, my comfort blanket. And why deny myself this comfort when there is so little comfort to be had? 

I need to challenge my thoughts about writing. It's a treat that must be withheld until I've done enough drudge to deserve it. It's a vice. It's an addiction that must be fought, a siren-song that will lure me away from life.

But it builds and it builds. The itch inside the brain, a scribble here and a jot there. It sneaks in through the chinks like sunshine through the knot-holes in grandad's shed. Until I am choked up with the words. I will burst like a confetti-bomb. Shoot out poems like a bunchberry. 

In the end it is an irresistible force.  I am up at 3am in the spare room. I give in: I'm a writer.

[The richly resonant heading of this post is the title of Daniel  Sluman's brilliant collection from Nine Arches Press. Everyone should read this. Everyone.]