Today

Rather surprised to find that I've spent a large chunk of today ironing. Given that I'm having a week off, it's doubly astonishing. Well, my ironing lady, who was never at the top of her profession, blotted her ironing board by giving the ironing to her no doubt well-meaning, but untrained daughter. Which resulted in partially ironed sheets and apparently unironed tablecloths, charged at the full £5.50 PH rate. So I decided that it isn't such a big deal, doing it yourself.

What with Paul's job meaning that he gets through about 15 shirts per week and our having 2 lots of guests last week, resulting in 4 duvet covers, 4 sheets and 12 pillow cases, ironing was rather a chore.

I got through my linen skirts, the bedding and about 8 of Paul's shirts before Paul intervened. "I can't let you iron my shirts. It's a matter of principle", he said.

In My Day

To understand why principle comes into this, we have to go back to 1979. We were living in a tiny 3 bedroomed semi with the girls (aged about 7 & 2), my sister and her soon-to-be husband and my nephew from Canada.

All adults were working full-time and keeping on top of things was quite a headache.

One day, Beatrice and I told the assembled household that we would bung into the washing machine anything that we found in the washing basket, although we would not turn people's knickers and socks inside out and that we thought that we should each take responsibility for our own ironing.

At that, Nick (Beatrice's paramour) stalked up the stairs, remarking "I am not lowering myself to do the ironing". Given that he and I were both civil servants and that I was an executive officer to his clerical officer rank, this was particularly galling.

Not that I had time to be upset. Paul waded in: "Don't you ever do any ironing for that man", he hissed. And he decided then and there that it was perfectly appropriate for a man to iron his own shirts.

So I have to thank Nick that I have got off so lightly over the years with regard to ironing.