Hanky-Panky

For about two and a half joyful minutes a day I am not smeared with baby-bogeys. That is usually the time it takes between stepping out of the shower in the morning and pulling on a clean jumper. By the time I sit at my dressing table, in freshly-laundered clothing, ready to put on my war-paint to face the day, a bleep must show up on the children's psychic radar or an alarm rings that is only audible to anyone under the age of four that means "Make haste and wipe your nose on Mum..."

No wonder The Husband never says, "Wow, you look amazing! Let me take you in my arms..."

Perhaps if I did my housewife's homework a bit more thoroughly, he might. Of course The Happy Housewife's text book would have to be Ruth Drew's manual of the same name, published in 1964. It makes hilarious reading. It is crammed with the kind of prescriptive advice that every woman of my mother's generation obviously needed to know. From the most effective way to clean tar stains off a woollen rug, to how to conduct oneself when shopping for household linen in the sales, Ruth has all the eminently sensible answers.

"Washday Worries - How to cope with Handkerchiefs:
Soak in cold salted water for about an hour. Rinse thoroughly before washing. To keep white handkerchiefs a good colour, boil them now and again with borax, one teaspoon to a dozen handkerchiefs..."
("The Happy Housewife", Ruth Drew,1964)

The Blame Game

I was incensed to read the results of the Amnesty survey yesterday about a woman's culpability in a rape situation. A third of people in Britain apparently believe that she is 'asking for it' if she has behaved in a flirtatious manner. Given, in my experience, most men's complete inability to read body language, a woman is therefore placing her personal safety at risk the moment she smiles a greeting. If she happens to be wearing a short skirt whilst enjoying a glass of wine at the same time, then heaven help her.

Have we really not progressed any further in our social attitudes since the 1950's? When are men going to full responsibility for what they do with their sexual urges? Why is it that their lack of self-control in the face of 'extreme provocation' is acceptable, understandable or even excusable under any circumstances? Sadly, I would be advising my daughters to cover up - not least because of the chilly weather - but because women, quite simply, do not have the freedom to dress or behave as they choose. Not whilst the social climate allows men to justify their sexual violence through the assumption that women are ever 'asking for it'. Think of it like this - no-one even dares to suggest that if men get drunk or flirt they should then be assaulted. The double-standard goes on...

Obviously, it is an awful lot more complicated than that. Why young women feel the need to bare their midriffs, display their cleavages, and risk hypothermia in the scantiest of outfits in the first place, is part and parcel of the highly sexualised modern world we inhabit. The objectifying of women does not get more palatable just because she herself insists on living up to the media-enhanced stereotype of the feminine ideal - skinny to the point of malnutrition and with as much flesh on show as possible. I have to curb my tongue when I drive through town, resisting the temptation to wind down the window and shout "Put some clothes on!" when I see the girls strutting by on perilously high-heels clad only in a belt and bra. Perhaps I am getting old, but can't they feel the wind-chill factor?

On the opposite end of the ridiculous spectrum, a woman was reprimanded by police in Watton, Norfolk, following a complaint about her bosoms. She had dared to put them to their proper use and breast-fed her daughter in public...

On a more sensible note, what are you having for dinner tonight? Try Baked Sweet-Glazed Ham and Fruity Cous-Cous, a delicious and fuss-free supper and the latest addition to The Happy Housewife's Recipes

Now excuse me, I must go and dig out my thermals.

A Spoonful of Sugar...

Our bedroom window looks out across open farmland to a forest beyond. Woodpeckers, deer and hundreds of rabbits (or 'bunnits', as Smallest Son has christened them) make their homes just beyond our garden wall, and it is a popular place for people to exercise their dogs in the peace and solitude of the Oxfordshire countryside. On waking, I throw open the curtains to greet the day and watch the mist rising over the meadows... An idyllic picture, I think you'd agree. But one particular dog-walker got a nasty surprise yesterday morning. Imagine his consternation - as he rambled across the frosty grass with faithful Rover bounding ahead, he glanced up at our house and nearly fell down a bunnit-hole in horror. For there was a heavily pregnant woman, stark naked in all her beached-whale glory, blow-drying her damp knickers with a hairdryer.

I hasten to add that the knickers were not on my body at the time - I had just plucked them from the washing machine, in my usual hectic morning scramble to get the kids up and dressed - but I put them on very quickly and had an uncomfortably clammy posterior all morning.

Today was Middle Son's third birthday, and a birthday tea was obviously the order of the day. All my healthy-eating rules were ceremoniously dumped in the sugar bowl as we tucked into chocolate cornflake cakes, raspberry jelly, baby sausages and a big chocolate-iced custard sponge cake. Having spent all afternoon slaving over a mixing bowl, measuring and beating every conceivable manifestation of sugar that exists - caster, granulated, icing, golden syrup, and multi-coloured hundreds-and-thousands - I settled for a cheese sandwich with my cup of tea.

The Cardiovascular Research and Education Foundation in Wisconsin has apparently concluded in a recent study that children who have more home-cooked meals are at lower risk of heart disease. It's a good thing they didn't come to our house for tea today...

A New Domestic Goddess?

Gordon Ramsay put a big ol' tom cat amongst the feminist pigeons a week or so ago, with his controversial comment that "women can't cook to save their lives." Inevitably his comments have kicked up quite a storm, as was probably intended, but they have been taken out of context somewhat. What Mr Ramsay was saying was not that women can't cook because they are women - this is not a gender issue - but because they don't know how. And adversely, more and more men have discovered where the oven is. About time too, I say.

It does seem that less and less women know how to cook a meal from scratch, however - and there are quite a lot of "howevers" - most men never did, and we were never shocked by that. We are looking at a generation of women who have different responsibilities from their mothers, different lives. Their mothers were from the generation of women who wrestled with maternal guilt whilst forging feminine identities that were valid outside the domestic sphere, outside the home. They knew how to cook, our grandmothers had ensured that, but flexed the new female muscle of choice which fish-fingers and angel delight made possible. Now their daughters wrestle with another gamut of guilts - for most women, having a career is an economic necessity, leaving the children in the care of others an inevitability, and convenience food the difference between mere exhaustion and complete melt-down.

I am all in favour of Gordon Ramsay's new campaign to get women back into the kitchen - I seem to spend my life in there - but could we do it please without the attendant guilt. Gorgeous Nigella, self-confessed Domestic Goddess, has got a lot to answer for. Not only is she delicious to look at but she cooks like an angel. It's a lot to live up to...

Women have spent the last one hundred years or so breaking free from the social and cultural manacles that bound their femininity to the house, and now we are supposed to pour ourselves back into corsets, tie on our pinnies and rush back into the kitchen. It's all quite exhausting.

Trouser Crisis

At 9.05 pm precisely, Oldest Son asked me to wash his school trousers, as he said goodnight. Of course I forgot, and had to sponge him down this morning to remove all trace of yesterday's football match, which meant I sent him out into the world a little damp. When I pointed out that he could change into his tracksuit at breaktimes if he wished to play muddy games, he looked horrified. "Mu-um!" he gasped, as if I had suggested putting his pants on his head.

Our first recipe has been posted this morning, and since it was mentioned in the first ever post by Desperate Housewife (now known as The Happy Housewife!) it seemed very fitting. There is always a fight in our house for the crispy bits around the edge of the dish. It's dead easy, so give Cottage or Shepherd's Pie a go.

The Happy Housewife and Domestic Blitz

Well, the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed a slight change to Desperate Housewife's appearance this morning... with a nod to those domestic diva's of the 1950's, and a ladleful of irony, she has put on a new frock and wishes to be known hereafter as The Happy Housewife! No, there hasn't been a cataclysmic epiphany (like Saul on the road to Damascus...) or anything that dramatic - sadly, the mountains of laundry and dirty dishes that my boys generate have not suddenly disappeared - but I want to shift the focus onto how we can improve our domestic lot, rather than waste so much time moaning about it. That is not to say that Desperate Housewife won't re-apear from time to time and have a good whinge...

Let me get one or two things straight from the begninning. The Happy Housewife does not subscribe to that particular brand of celebrity-endorsed nonsense that sees housewifery as a leisure pursuit, a lifestyle choice to be picked up and put down at will, like a grown-up game of role-play (with dressing-up accessories by Cath Kidston - although anything that brightens up the drudgery should be seriously considered!) The Happy Housewife seeks to share sensible domestic advice for those women who live in the real world, and who juggle the daily grind of cooking and cleaning and being Mum with the demands of the workplace, without the assistance of a personal stylist, nanny, agent and huge personal fortune.

So keep coming back. There will be all sorts of goodies appearing over the next few weeks - recipes, kitchen wisdom, food reviews, shopping - lots of tips to smoothe the domestic blitz that is the reality for so many of us... Feel free to send your questions or suggestions to The Happy Housewife

Culinary Alchemy Ever After...

My disillusionment is almost palpable. It hangs around my ankles like an irritable old black dog, threatening unwary visitors and snarling at small children. If this new life, that has begun to press and roll within me, is the daughter I have been waiting for, I will not be reading her the fairy tales of my youth. They lie, and there is not time enough for hope amidst the piles of laundry and dirty dishes...

Look at Cinderella, incapacitated by housework and drudgery - Sleeping Beauty, beautiful but comatosed - Snow White slave to seven men-children. Can you see a pattern emerging? All are rescued, all are swept away from it all by the timely appearance of The Handsome Prince. He has the looks, the privilege of wealth and title, the daring, the sensitivity, the magic. And that is always the end of the story. They live happily ever after. Mr Right makes it all better so there is no need to go on. That is all you need to know.

I make a poor fairy tale princess. I do not expect to be empowered by his testosterone or to validate my existence and define my identity by being A Good Wife. But occasionally, a little bit of magic would go a long way. I'd settle for an uninterrupted night of sleep, a cup of tea in bed, dinner that I hadn't cooked myself, because it would obviously be pushing the bounds of reality to expect any emotional intimacy. Now that would be a real fairy tale...

Talking of magic, I have been asked to write an article about cooking for students. Learning how to perform culinary alchemy on a limited budget... I may not make a convincing Sleeping Beauty, but it seems the job as Fairy Godmother is up for grabs.