It is a common preconception that to be a stay at home mum also includes doing household chores. And that you have either a) an enthusiasm for domesticity or at the very least b) some capability.
I'm a stay at home mum. I flipping abhore domestic chores. 7 years of occasionally feeling guilty enough to do them and my skill levels in this department haven't improved.
Already clearly documented is my out and out hatred of ironing. Well obviously it doesn't just stop at that.
As you may know this week was the first week of my new life. One where I have pretty much stopped doing all the work I was doing and my girls are back at school, There is a lot of psychological shenanigans associated with this new life that I'll bore you with another time, but for now let's say I'd run out of excuses not to try being a full on domestic goddess.
So I menu planned, shopped accordingly and cleaned the house from top to bottom, including using a scrubbing brush (yes you read that right) in the bathroom. Although you could argue that not cleaning the tiles for a year might have contributed to the need for said scrubbing brush.
I cooked a couple of semi-decent meals and a couple of terrible ones because I stupidly forgot that "no Weightwatchers, substituting decent ingredients for half fat cheese, low fat Philadelphia and cornflakes does not make for a delicious light alternative".
I did all the washing, got the freezer mended and was starting to feel smug.
One morning I saw a left over handful of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and thought "to throw them away would be a waste" so I googled and on a whim made crunchy nut cornflake rock cakes. At least they went into the oven like that but came out a thin sheet of greasy overdone flapjack which I rolled into tubes and passed off as brandy snaps. Which of course I couldn't cook if you paid me. They are still in the tupperware, I can't imagine why.
Yesterday I tried to cook a roast dinner whilst simultaneously supervising my girls at a party. Roasting from a distance is nigh on impossible, and made worse when your other half is off out earlier than usual to try and spot Jupiter and you've accidentally bought the wrong size of chicken. The whole thing, coupled with a hormonal rage, made for an interesting half an hour which the kids seemed to manage to tune out, but Paul could unfortunately not. Sorry honey. We ended up with unappealing pasta bake.
So today I thought I'd top off my domestic week by doing my ironing, whilst listening to Desert Island Discs (I have travelled back in time and bodyswapped with my mum from 1983). I was also simultaneously rehashing yesterday's roast chicken and all the trimmings. We managed relatively unscathed so later on I got cocky and thought jam tarts would be a good idea. Just call me Delia.
On removing the tarts from the oven it was clearly a good idea to move them onto the cooling rack while the jam was still molten. 15 minutes and frostbite later I have a sore little finger and the resolve to give up baking entirely. Even the ready rolled pastry sort.
So my first week and I have fully removed the option of housewife from my career plans. Excellent. What can I remove/balls up this week?
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