Tag Archives: laundry

On strike

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We’ve all been very relieved about the good news on the cancer front. Of course. I got big hugs from both the teenagers which nearly made me cry, as it only then sank home what it all really meant.

Later that evening one of the boys suddenly turned to me and said “So does that mean you’re going to start doing our laundry again?”

What?

“Certainly not!”

I’ve been on strike since a particularly bad week somewhere near the start of the chemo when the washing mountain grew and grew and my idle offspring waited for me to deal with it. It was half term, I believe, so it wasn’t as though they were pressed with other duties.

Anyhow I’ve enjoyed being on strike and see no reason to regress. In fact, I regard it as my duty as a mother to stay on strike. Their future wives will surely thank me.

Now, do you reckon I could get them to clean the loo?

 

The Gallery – Show me the Funny

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Tara, at Sticky Fingers, sets a photograph challenge each week.  I’ve been meaning to take part for months but, well, you may have noticed that I haven’t blogged for months.  So, to celebrate putting metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper, I’ve hunted through Windows Explorer to find something for this week’s theme: Show me the funny.

May I present two or maybe three photos which encapsulate for me Living with Teenagers.

I spotted this sculpture at Tate Modern earlier this year. It sums up for me exactly how I feel when I come home from a week’s fieldwork. Laundry basket overflowing, bedroom floors invisible beneath the mound of wet towels, on duty as Domestic Goddess (if only) the moment I step through the door…

And then there is the challenge of making teenage boys Go Out For A Walk…  You can feel the happiness and excitement in this picture.

And finally, do teenage boys read? Or only when they have to?

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig

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“It hasn’t stopped raining for two days! I haven’t been able to get any washing out” GP1 said.

Head snaps round. Eyes swivel left. Is that my son talking?  The one who had six wet towels on his bedroom floor the last time I arrived home from fieldwork?  Well, I have to confess it was those six towels that did it, particularly when combined with the five more I found on his brother’s floor and the distinct absence of clean, dry, sweet smelling towels in the airing cupboard. But I’ve already told you about those.  What I maybe didn’t tell you was that I threw a wobbly and when shortly after I left for yet another two weeks work, there were rules.  Continue reading →