The Housewife's 'Day Off'

When living with my parents, I would spend most of my days off in the winter sitting on the sofa in my pyjamas, drinking endless cups of tea and watching episode after episode of Diagnosis Murder or catching up with friends at a push; I wouldn’t have to move all day if I didn’t need to - I don’t think I ever appreciated these days enough.

Yesterday was my first day off in my new flat, though I will no longer use the phrase ‘day off’. That just no longer seems to fit the description. I spent half the morning cleaning the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Living with Mike is like living with the Tasmanian Devil; he leaves every room in a state of carnage: clothes everywhere, stacks of washing up, various endless wires lying around from numerous extension cords. It would seem that the bathroom towels are also a species of Tasmanian Devil, leaving copious amounts of bright pink towel fluff on every white surface imaginable!

The second half of my morning was spent shopping for a top-up of food, going to the Post Office and to the bank (I started to feel like my mum at this point) and waiting for what felt like hours at the railway crossing, before returning home to vacuum every room and have a shower before the men came to fit our Sky box. Not knowing what this would involve, I simply removed all items from around the TV. It turns out that because we’re having Broadband fitted in January that this isn’t enough – all boxes stacked against the wall needed to be moved for the phone line to be fitted, as well as the heavy dining table and my little Christmas tree. It’s possible that the Sky men made more of a mess than Mike! To add to my embarrassment of not knowing anything about installing phone lines and what fitting Sky entails, I was walking around with freshly blow-dried hair double its normal size and make-up streaks down my cheeks from my shower – I looked like a member of Kiss!

As soon as they were out the door, I switched the Sky Box on for an episode of Diagnosis Murder, only to then realise the time and had to start preparing dinner – toad in the hole. When this was eventually in the oven, I still didn’t have time to enjoy the new Sky box as I had to get ready to go out (i.e. get rid of the Kiss make-up and flatten my hair!).

By half 5, dinner was cooked and eaten, the washing up had been done, Mike’s half of dinner was in the oven and I was ready to leave the house for a relaxing evening at the Amex Stadium watching Brighton v Millwall. Did I say relaxing?

The Beginning

This weekend brought the start of something new that was incredibly exciting, overwhelmingly sad and undeniably petrifying - the birth of a 21^st Century housewife: The exciting part being moving in with my boyfriend of four and a half years; the sad part being leaving my happy and comfortable home with my mum; and the petrifying part? Realising how big the world actually is and having someone else depend on me for my half of the rent and depending on someone else for their half.

We moved in together on Saturday, an exhausting experience all on its own, considering we are renting a second floor flat and were running all our worldly possessions up to it, wardrobe and double bed included. Whilst Mike assembled the furniture, I vacuumed around him, having made him lunch and about to embark on making the bed. Fortunately for me, the chores ended there as it was Domino’s pizza for dinner. Sunday was spent arranging the homeware and my possessions while my boyfriend, Mike, played golf all day. Yes you did read that correctly.

Whilst not being a housewife in the typical sense (my boyfriend and I are not actually married and I do not stay at home all day while he is the breadwinner) there are certain traits I did not expect to inherit.

So what makes me call myself a housewife when I wouldn’t fit the description in the dictionary? For starters, I have become the household cook. I have never been a cook. My spaghetti has always tasted like cardboard and my pancakes end up as Santa’s gifts to children on the naughty list. The first time I ever cooked for Mike he ate dinner before he came over just in case. Last night, however, I spent two hours in the kitchen preparing a roast dinner (the first one I had ever cooked) while Mike (who actually can cook and talks to me about it whilst doing so like he’s Jamie Oliver talking to the camera) played Xbox and moaned about being hungry.

Was he left hungry? Well, miraculously, the chicken was properly cooked; the Yorkshire pudding was perhaps a little large and stodgy, so much so that we could only eat half the dinner, and the stuffing was slightly undercooked, but not a bad first attempt(?). Despite having done most of the washing-up whilst I was cooking Mike still moaned at finishing it. Bad move on my part really because I had to wash everything again this morning. It would seem that washing-up is somehow a multi-task?

This blog will be my diary of my shift from comfortable student who came home and watched Murder, She Wrote to a (sort of) housewife who now comes home and puts dinner on (though I am still a student). Keep updated!