Time on my hands

In a previous article I described my transformation into a househusband, or "how I stopped worrying about being redundant and learned to love the vacuum". I explained how I had discovered the satisfaction and unexpected pleasure of achieving a degree of mastery over a range of household cleaning tasks.

There were other pleasures to be discovered too - or rather re-discovered. It's very important to try to keep yourself entertained whilst carrying out what could otherwise be a range of brain-atrophying tasks. Years ago my old hi-fi equipment and vinyl record collection had been grudgingly consigned to a small room upstairs following the arrival, after considerable and persistent pressure from my wife (of course, I'm not allowed to use the term "nagging"), of a neater, considerably smaller but turntableless sound system. This upstairs room had become known as the music room - a most generous title since this small space contained the various guitars which I strove to get a few sounds out of, together with a stringless banjo, an out-of-tune mandolin and an electric organ. The organ introductory tuition book was still open at the halfway point, showing the three chords and half a dozen notes required to master Merrily We Roll Along.

It was the old BBC Light Programme all over again - Workers' Playtime! I decided to play through my alphabetically-arranged (sad!) record collection from start to finish as an accompaniment to my cleansing tasks. Oh, the delight and the disappointment; some music really does stand the test of time but too much falls into the "whatever made me buy that?" category, with only a dose of nostalgia preventing inclusion in the next car boot sale. There was a lot of middling stuff too - music that I was content to vacuum to, whereas the likes of the Beatles, Fairport Convention, Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell demanded that nothing noisier than a flick of the duster disturbed the air.

Yet another source of satisfaction stemmed from the fact that I am a good eight inches taller than my wife and I could easily get to places way beyond her normal reach. Upon discovering a high-level gathering of dust, I lost the struggle to keep the sarcasm out of my voice when asking, "When was this last done then?" I will not record her less-than-ladylike response, other than to comment that I wish that the vacuum had been running when she made it.

There was only one area of housework that my househusband training had not included - one skill that prevented me from claiming comprehensive mastery of the domestic agenda: ironing, the final frontier. Big softy that I am, how could I let my better half come back from a full day's work to face a mound of damp, wrinkled clothes? This garment mountain was mainly generated by our son's need for a daily workshirt plus nightly casual shirt together with numerous T-shirts worn in between - not forgetting many pairs of jeans which seemed to find their way into the washing basket after just one outing (although my wife had developed the habit of putting these straight back on the hanger - he never seemed to notice and I suppose this is clear evidence that she was as capable as me at cutting a few corners).

This was to be a self-taught competence. I dipped my toe in the water by tackling a handkerchief - how strangely satisfying. Before long I felt confident to move on to more complex articles, reading the label of each for instructions and adjusting the iron to the required setting. After a few weeks, always with Radio 4 as my companion (where would we be without Women's Hour or a quirky afternoon play?) I was achieving a solid "satisfactory" rating from my in-house assessor - praise indeed. The thought struck me that, in career terms, this was probably the nearest that I was going to get to being back on the board!

I even told my good mate and fellow househusband Stuart about my latest ironing skill. He never doubted that I could do it - we both shared a solid technical school education that equipped us to tackle any practical challenge systematically and with quiet confidence. Little did we know that those hours spent in the woodwork and metalwork shops would provide a foundation which would prepare us so well for this unexpected domesticity. Mind you, thinking back to those formative years has reminded me that the "Gents Only" in the Kings Head pub around the corner from school also provided us with another very valuable lifetime skill - lifting pint pots. The housework is done and I'm going to give Stuart a call to go up the pub - I hope that he has finished his ironing.