Sponsored Post: Dishwashing Expert

An unlikely post, perhaps, but our dishwasher is broken. We came back from the hospital after Pip was born and the first time we tried to use it, it refused to start, flashed some lights and started beeping ominously. After a while we identified that it needed salt. I wish I'd known about this website which can help identify your dishwasher problems (without having to try and locate the manual). Not only can it assist with dishwasher troubleshooting but it actually answers questions that the manuals probably don't, such as why there may be traces of rust on some items which should be rust free.

Turns out adding salt didn't help. The repair man was called by our landlord. Whatever he did didn't fix it. He was called again. That still didn't work. Apparently the landlord has decided to replace it. We are still waiting for them to decide which dishwasher and come to install it. It needs to be a slimline one, as that is what they will be replacing. I think we could have chosen one and installed it quicker than them. Six weeks on and still no dishwasher.

Thankfully, until then, I have a husband.

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This is a sponsored post (but our dishwasher really is broken)

The weekly

It's been a week of ups and downs. Whilst there have been flashes of sunshine, both literally and metaphorically, I feel like I've been wading through greyness and puddles for the vast majority of the week.

This morning though, M surprised me with a massage that he had organised secretly for me, followed by lunch, then pottering in the local shops, where we bought Pip a sun hat and a beautiful pair of organic cotton chocolate leggings (which she loved so much she immediately pooped on them). We then bought cheese, bread and salad for supper and had tea and cake in a lovely Danish cafe - although bizarrely, we actually were drawn in because they serve Monmouth coffee - that we hadn't been in before, but which I would recommend.

Yesterday, I met M's dad for lunch and then pottered in the shops, idly looking for something to wear that I can still breastfeed in and trying on boots that I can't afford, before returning home and having tea and biscuits with an old friend. As soon as I have the photos of her present, I will be sharing them, because they are too gorgeous not to.

It was only yesterday and today that doing normal things, with the addition of the baby, felt, well, pretty much normal. I'm not sure why this surprised me, that it took so long, because every time we make any changes to either our living situation or my working situation, I feel out of sorts for at least three or four weeks. And Monday will be four weeks.

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Photo by caravinagre via flickr

Happy Valentine's Day

Well, the lack of car did have a single silver lining. We were in London for the weekend which ordinarily would have meant that I would have got the train back on my own. We had to start looking for cars this morning though, so Husband and I took a train back together last night, ate Chinese food and opened our presents to each other (I gave him the card in the photo above, he gave me a vintage French dictionary so I can start practising for our anniversary trip to Paris) and this morning we drank coffee in bed together before getting the bus into the town where I work to look at a car. (which was crap). So we ate lunch in the sunshine before I went to work and he got a bus to London for the week.

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(photo on card of us on our honeymoon in Cornwall, card from Moonpig)

On being married ( and arguing about chores)

Back when Husband was a boyfriend and we were at university, we lived in separate houses. He lived with a load of our male friends and the house was a tip. It wasn't the greatest of houses, chosen more for its size and location than for it's features (like, say, hot water in the kitchen). 5 university students who drink and play computer games far more than they did work made a lot of mess. There was never any loo roll. I soon brought over a bag of the essentials and kept it there for the nights I stayed there. Sometimes I look back and can't believe I ever stepped into the shower, or ate food given the state of the kitchen. But cleaning and chores were low on the list of anyones priorities when there was partying to be done and drinking to be occupied with. Every so often though, I would be the girlfriend everyone loved by tackling all the washing up. All of it. Using kettles to fill the washing up bowl, over and over. Not because I loved washing up (I don't. I hate it). But making Husband and my friends happy, that meant more. Husband never seemed to do any laundry either, saving it all up for a trip to the laundrette occasionally. So, once or twice a term, I would offer for him to bring his washing to mine in a taxi and in return for him cooking me supper, I would do his washing. Not to ingratiate myself to him but because it was a trade - something he hated doing in return for something I hated doing. Plus it made him happy to have clean clothes, and me happy because he was happy. Plus I got to eat something other than soup, which my body appreciated.

(In halls in the first year, we had a laundry room. I would do a load maybe every other week - they were industrial size machines - and I would frequently run into a girl from my corridor. She was dating another lad in halls and every week she did his washing in addition to hers. I was outraged that she would behave, in my eyes, like she was his mother or cleaner. I never saw him doing anything in return for her - although of course, maybe he was just great in bed - and it seemed to the uneducated eye like she was buying her part in the relationship by making herself indispensable. I swore I would never behave in such a fashion).

Some while later, we moved into together in London. I don't remember having a specific conversation about chores and cleaning but it roughly seemed to break down into him doing the cooking, food shopping and washing up and me doing the laundry, cleaning the bathroom, changing the bed sheets and making sure we don't run out of practical items such as loo roll, toothpaste, light bulbs, bin bags, cleaning materials and so on. The cleaning and tidying of the other rooms (ha. bedroom and sitting room) were a joint enterprise. Which mainly were only cleaned or tidied when guests were coming round. It worked because we seemed to have the same standards of tidiness and because we were in the same place all 7 days of the week.

Since living in Somerset though, we live a much different life. The house is *ours* but I am the only one who lives in it full time. He has another place up in London that he rents. I have more clutter than he does and when he comes back, he tells me he can see what I have been up to all week by the placement of cups, handbags, books and where I last left the laptop. Maybe because he's away all week, he seems to me to be more obsessed about tidiness than he was before. In fact, pretty much the only thing we argue about is the housework.

Obviously with Husband away Mon - Thurs, if I want to eat, I have to cook for myself, and ideally wash it up too. When Husband comes back on Thursday night, it is abundantly clear that it is my mess that is lying around, that I have become more messy while he has become much more interested in the place being tidy, who hates it that things are left all over. He wouldn't mind just clearing them up, he tells me, if it wasn't that I shout at him for moving things or moan about the house being untidy.

I've been thinking about it quite a lot, actually, the give and take in marriage. I have been thinking that whilst I say I clean the bathroom and change the sheets, maybe I only do that once every two weeks. Obviously, I clean the loo more than that, but if I'm being totally honest, I maybe even go three weeks before I do those things. After all, most of the time, it's just me. I do washing every week still and try to remember to clean up after myself - usually by doing it all at midnight on Weds before he comes back - but I probably don't average at 50% of the housework. How is that 8 years ago I would wash 4 weeks worth of dishes for 5 male friends because I wanted to make them happy when now I can't keep the house clutter free when I know how much it stresses my husband?

And then today, I read Meg's post and decided perhaps we need to sit down and actually list and identify all of the chores and housework and cleaning. Including the stuff which maybe isn't on anyone's mental list but definitely needs doing (like when I wash my face etc in the morning and I look at the patch of mould on the wall and think I really must get around to bending down, getting the mould spray, moving those bottles and wiping the wall. Which would probably take all of 15 mins, but it needs a time when I can leave the window open to air it, so I haven't got round to it yet.) And re-evaluate. Who says that what worked in London, still does? And then share out all the jobs evenly - or maybe slanted more to me as I'm there more of the time. I am also hoping that we can agree to not nag the other person about their half. I will try and tidy up more if he will agree to not come in and immediately start tidying up after me. Which annoys me so much we end up shouting at each other. Give and take. Give and take.

I might send him this post too. Maybe we can discuss it over e-mail so we don't shout...

Blossom, weekends, marriage.

Blossom at Porlock Weir against a thatched roof and leaden skies. We are learning to be happy in our new weekend surroundings. Enjoying gardening, reading, cooking and wandering through walled gardens in the spring rain. Of nearly empty pubs on a Sunday afternoon, of baking lemon rice pudding and eating it served in glass tea cups. Of pulling off the side of the road after a Saturday morning in the office and sitting, in the sunshine, watching lambs running and playing. We are learning to be older and married. Content in each other's company. Listening to each other's lives, our plans, our worries. Sitting in contented thyme-and-mint-candlelit silence for earth hour, whispering of the day that we might extend our family of two. Maybe even get a dog. But all in good time. Of Cornish yellow daffodils and Cornish purple anemones, jostling together in a jug in the kitchen. Of weekends. Together.

On being married part II

I wrote before about being married but re-reading it, I'm not sure I agree with my July self any longer. On paper, not much has changed since then. I am still jobless although I have taken on some unpaid freelance work in PR which I am enjoying. I am still at home more than Husband. I am still, technically, a housewife, in that Husband works and I do not. Yet I do not feel that I am one, or need to be one. It is also (I hope, I pray) a temporary role.

Meg wrote the other day about reclaiming the word 'wife'. I think there is a lot of merit in stating that wife does not have to be defined in a Bree Van Der Kamp pre-catering-business type way. As you will no doubt have realised by now, my viewpoint usually leans towards the traditional but not, surprisingly, on the subject of the word 'wife'.

In our marriage, Husband and I are a partnership, a team, a family. Neither of us is in charge. We make decisions about our future together, jointly. Sometimes one person's agenda is more important (like when I had a job offer out of London) and sometimes the other person's needs take precedence. We share our household chores equally to our strengths: Husband loves to cook, I love to bake. We both sit down on a Monday night and order our vegetables and meat from Able & Cole, we purchase our own lunches and as he cooks (and earns the money at the moment, he purchases other food items on the way home from work. I purchase cleaning materials & toiletries, because I care which ones we use and he has little preference). Husband would rather wash up and I would rather do laundry. We have floor boards so we have yet to have the hoovering discussion but I suspect we would take turns. We both do tidying and emptying bins and cleaning generally as and when it needs doing. He encourages me to be nicer, I encourage him to come home a bit earlier from a night out. We support each other, look after each other when we are ill & try and get the other person to have the first shower in the morning so we can steal 5 more minutes in bed.

Home is where my Husband is. Home isn't my parents house any longer. I like that. I love being his wife, perhaps because it makes me smile every time he says it. I love that we have said to each other, in front of everyone else, that we are each others forever. I love that he is proud of that commitment, the fact that he is not single any longer and likes to proclaim it to friends, colleagues and clients. I also love the fact that when we were away on our honeymoon, his out of office e-mail told everyone that he was on our honeymoon, rather than just on annual leave.

I am his wife. He is my husband. But we are also so much more than that. We are a family.

But, pretty much all of this applied even before we got married. We were a family long before we got married, even if not officially, legally. We waited until we got married to open a joint bank account but since living together our finances have been intertwined. Generally, the person with the money spent it. Our habits, our sharing, our supporting were present long before any thoughts of marriage. Perhaps that was how we knew we would have a good marriage: that we had the basis without any formal commitment in the forms of rings or signatures. Which is why I am not traditional about the word 'wife': because wife to me simply says Rachel in the context of married Rachel and M. Nothing more.