Housework

Sunday Blog 91 – 2nd July 2023

I’m up to the stage of submitting my novella manuscript to publishers (yay and eek all at once). I have been working on it for about eight years, so it’s quite the gear shift. I’m keeping myself connected to my writing practice by writing shorter pieces, looking for places to submit for publication or to enter competitions.

A writing prompt this weekend has got me thinking about housework, and servants. What a strange, co-dependant relationship it was, between servant and mistress. I fell down quite a few research rabbit holes trying to find out more about servants in England before and after the First World War. Far too many rabbit holes for the shortness of the piece I was trying to write.

It was interesting to reflect that as the world was modernising, some households were changing, becoming more bohemian. But not quite bohemian enough to do the dusting. So still, they kept servants.

One of the drivers of the (ahem) rare lively discussions between darling husband and I was my desire for a housecleaner. Back in the day when I was working more than full-time. It was classist he intimated, and of course there was the cost. We compromised by him doing all the housework in return for being taken out to dinner fortnightly. It was win, win, win for me, but what with the menopausal gap year and quitting my job, that arrangement has come to an end. I’m back on the end of the mop.

On the whole, I’m glad. But… writing retreat last weekend, mopping the next. It’s hard not to long for more grand times in writing cabins!