Piles of Cash

Mrs. FussyKnickers called this morning, irritatingly perky. She wanted to arrange play-dates and I happened to mention that fitting everything in around my work was becoming more and more of A Juggling Act.

"Oh, you poor thing," she sighs. "Of course, we are lucky in that my husband earns so much money that I don't have to go out to work!"

There, bold as brass, she just came out and said it. WE HAVE PILES OF CASH...

I bit my lip and the play-date was arranged. She then mentioned that Super Brilliant Rich Husband was going into hospital for a day next week for a minor operation.

"How dreadful! Let me know if I can help you at all with the kids," I heard myself saying.

"That would be marvellous!" says Old FussyKnickers, "Because I have no idea how I will cope on my own." (Helpful Background Context: She has TWO children. I have FOUR.)

"Nothing serious, I hope?" I was dying to know what the problem was with Super Brilliant Rich Husband.

"Haemorrhoids," she whispered.


So there is a God after all.

The Trouble With Fish

We had gorgeous, creamy, succulent Lemon Sole for dinner last night with new potatoes and a crisp salad. Now I know this might seem extravagant, bearing in mind our Reduced Circumstances but I bought them quite some time ago when they were on special offer and put them in the freezer. The trouble with fish though, is that unless you wash the dishes Straight Away, the house smells like Billingsgate on a hot day for months afterwards... and I can be The Slatternly Housewife if I am tired or there is something good on telly or if it is a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc... The Husband redeemed himself somewhat by scrubbing the kitchen 'till it was spotless so not a whiff of fish remained.

The freezer is now pretty much empty. There is a large chicken defrosting on the side which I will roast today and attempt to stretch out to feed the tribe until Tuesday, but other than that there are two loaves of bread, an apple strudel, some sardines, a pepperoni pizza and three placentas.

Being a Heathen, none of my children have been christened and instead I intended to plant a tree to mark their entry into the world as I did with Number 1. I have therefore frozen their after-birth which provides marvellous compost if you pop it into the hole around the roots. Unfortunately, I still haven't got around to it, as I wanted their trees to be planted in the garden of their childhood home and we are still waiting for one of those. It doesn't seem a permanent enough tribute to plant trees while we live in rented accommodation and so we have carted around these three placentas every time we move house. At one point, they resided in the catering freezer of our old pub and on several occasions we had to divert the chef from cooking up what he thought was some very tasty-looking liver to the unwitting customers. Although, now that I can't afford to do any grocery shopping this week, perhaps he had the right idea?



Top Tips For Girls is a great website with lots of really useful advice like How To Support a Tall Bushy Plant (they don't mention the use of after-birth) and How To Get Rid of Kitchen Smells (they don't mention getting one's husband to clean up occasionally).

I wonder if they have any tips on how to feed the Hungry Hordes with just two loaves of bread and some fishes?

Having It All

We watched 'The Stepford Wives' last night - the 2004 movie version. It got me thinking about what it means to be a 'perfect wife' in the modern world.

The novel on which the film is based was written in 1972 by Ira Levin, and along with the original 1975 film version, falls into the horror/sci-fi genre. The modern movie though is quite definitely a comedy, although a weak one at best, and is given the predictable Hollywood 'love conquers all happy-ever-after' ending.

Culturally, I think that is quite significant. The idea that women might be turned into submissive pliant robots, programmed to pander to men's every need, by husbands threatened by high-achieving high-earning wives and that it would make them happy, may well have seemed horrific at the height of Feminism's Second Wave. Now, of course, the concept is just farcical.

But is it? Even though he doesn't place his wife in the Female Improvement System the heroine's husband admits that ever since they met she has beaten him at everything - she is better educated, better salaried, quicker, cleverer, more successful, even more sexually adept.
"Well, don't I get anything?" he says.
"You got me,"she replies.
"No, I got to hold your purse."

The other husbands agree. They married "wonder women", "supergirls", "Amazon queens" and so what does that make them?
"We're the girl."
"And we don't like it."

There is a conflict between a woman's quest to fulfil her potential and the possibility of insulting her husband's sense of masculine identity. It does not work the other way around. Do women feel threatened by high-achieving high-earning partners?

The politics of gender, particularly in terms of role assumption, play out in this house on a daily basis. I earn in a day what The Husband earns in a week, but having put my career on hold for the past five years while bringing up the children, I have been immersed in the mundane minutae of domestic life. It is difficult to leave it all behind. Our circumstances have meant I have felt obliged to go back to work part-time, but the guilt of 'leaving' the children and the home means the financial rewards come at a price. I still cook every meal, still get up in the night for the kids, still take on the household management... My female identity has been shaped by this. It is all part of what makes me feel like a woman, sadly. It is still the defining experience of the majority of women, the world over. The money doesn't make me feel feminine, but it does make me feel empowered, valuable, confident in a way all that domesticity didn't. Couldn't.

Can we have it all? Do men ever ask that question?

Excuse me, I must ask The Husband to put the bins out...

A Room Of My Own

I have mentioned before Virginia Woolf's most sensible advice that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is going to write." I share My Office with the second fridge, two large recycling containers, the gas boiler, ironing board, mop and assorted buckets. This is because My Office is actually a tiny - (I hesitate to use the word "room") - a tiny area just off the kitchen. Really no more than a Large Cupboard. As such, I am constantly interrupted by Number 1 wanting to know where his clean jeans are; by Number 2 asking if we can go to the park; by Number 3 demanding something to eat; by Number 4 who wants to press all the buttons on my computer; by The Husband wondering if I know where his keys/wallet/the children's shoes/new lavatory paper/the telephone/cigarettes/letters that arrived two weeks ago and he left on the kitchen table are. It is certainly not conducive to writing the great masterpiece that lurks just Out Of Reach beneath the surface and requires extensive periods of Soul-Searching and Quiet Contemplation for it to incubate and begin to take form. Actually, My Office is not conducive to getting any serious work done of any kind, even the run of the mill copywriting that is our bread-and-butter.

However, all is not lost. I have found that My Office has an extension, an annexe, a spare room. It looks like a shower cubicle to the untrained eye, but it is in fact A Room Of My Own - My Study - where I can indulge in some serious concentration and meditation ALONE. Unfortunately it is only available for a limited time per day. If I wait until The Husband has left for work, Number 1 doesn't surface until lunchtime anyway, put Breakfast TV on for the middle kids (I know , I know...) and put Number 4 down for his nap, I might just get a whole six minutes of Peace and Quiet in the shower. I've figured out, that if I can get six minutes uninterrupted thinking time every day, it will only take me... Oh.... SEVENTY-THREE YEARS to write The Best-selling Novel. I shall invest in a waterproof pen immediately.


Have had a Cunning Plan to solve the minor problem of having no money to pay the rent. I have changed the date of the Standing Order which transfers the money directly from my bank to the landlord's account. No, all right, perhaps it doesn't exactly solve the problem and will require the whole family to skulk around in large hats whenever we go out as the landlord lives opposite our front door, but it buys me another week in which to think about how I am going to solve the problem.

If you want me, I'll be in My Study.

Overdraft

Today I am not 'Loyal Supportive Wife'.

Today I am 'Wife Who Wishes To Chop Bollocks Off Husband'.

Something was Indeed Afoot.


"I need £400" He says.

"What?" I say, closely followed by "Why?"

"For court costs on Friday" he says.

Yes, not only is tomorrow the day I can't pay the rent, it is also the day of The Husband's bankruptcy hearing - which, it appears, is going to cost £400 to declare to the world that we have no money. Nada. Not a bean.

The Husband has known about this for months and yet he waits until two days before the money is required to mention it. I resist the temptation to remark that if he went out and got a full-time job this situation would be easier to manage. Just.

Could someone please remind me what husbands are for exactly?

Domestic Blitz...

The rent is due on Friday. Haven't worked out yet quite how I am going to pay it. Considered selling one of the children, although quickly realised that we would get nothing for Number 3.


A cessation of hostilities has been negotiated. Number 1 finally left his bedroom yesterday, bringing an end to a five-day stand-off during which time he refused to speak to anyone. It was difficult not to appreciate the blissful silence. The downside, along with the resumption of normal decibel levels, is that I am now allowed access to his room. This means I am duty-bound to gather armfuls of festering laundry or one morning he will not wake, having died in his sleep from inhaling the toxic fumes that emanate from the rotting piles of discarded clothing that litter his floor.

The Husband washed the windows yesterday without being asked. Something is definitely afoot.

Calling a Spade, a Spade..

Something has happened to The Husband.

Halfway through our annual two week holiday in Devon, he turned into Mr. Lovely. One night he went to sleep, his usual romantically-challenged self, and woke up a New Man. Thoughtful, caring, affectionate, verging on the chivalrous... Scary stuff. Was it the sea air? We have been back for two days and he is still being incredibly nice. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm just quite baffled.

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I have always been quite mean about the kids having pets - four boys is quite enough work, thank you, without adding to the domestic chaos with a furry friend, but when Number Three caught a crab and brought him home in a bucket, I was prepared to accommodate the new family member. How much trouble could a small crustacean be? Quite a lot as it happens. We called him Colin and fed him bits of bacon and he lived on a shelf in the storeroom. Just 24 hours later, he turned up his pincers and went to rest eternally in the great rock-pool in the sky. Number 3 was devastated. The Husband threw Colin in the dustbin when the children were asleep and we hoped he might be forgotten.

Some days later, we dragged the children around a beautiful old cemetery.
"What's under there?" asked Number 2, pointing to a particularly rounded grave.
Are they too young to understand the concept of death? Probably, but encouraged that I had the example of the erstwhile Colin to draw on, I attempted an explanation.
"When people die, we lay them in the ground so they can rest peacefully forever," I said.
The boys looked horrified.
"Because they are naughty?" asked Number 3.
"No darling, because they are dead."
"Like Colin?"
"Like Colin."

Back in Oxfordshire, over tea, Number 3 pipes up:
"When you get married you have to go in the ground forever."

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Has The Husband found a shovel?...