Admission of Guilt

I am domestically challenged.
It has taken me years to finally admit that, so I appreciate your support.

It is truly an embarrassment to my family. The women of my family are all domestic goddesses, the type who cook up a delicious and nutritious 3 course meal each night without letting so much as a hair get out of place. They produce Christmas dinner without breaking a sweat ( or a dish ), have tastefully decorated homes, manicured gardens and beautiful home-made wardrobes. My grandmother was a Housecraft teacher for crying out loud.

I hate them all.

I, on the other hand, am a total geek. I have far more interesting and intellectually challenging things to do than play 'Brady Bunch'. I think pizza is a well balanced diet ( it has all the food groups, right? ). I only clean floors when walking barefoot hurts. I don't even own an ironing board.

Nobody has ever thought any less of me due to my complete lack of housekeeping skill. I fear this might be due to the fact that until now, I have only lived with men. My previous homes after moving out of my mother's home are as follows: a group house with me and 6 pizza delivery guys, my boyfriend and two male flatmates and my boyfriend and two ( different ) male flatmates. Men are forgiving when it comes to cleaning and think you are a godsend if you can sew on a button ( the only skill I have kept from my days as a Brownie - aged 7 ). They have all been very understanding and, generally, far too interested in what was on TV to bother about things like grime and dust.

All this is about to change. As of the beginning of August, Darius and I will be moving in with another couple, and that means another woman. This is not good. Other women know that dust is not a protective coating for furniture. They also know how to boil an egg without setting off smoke alarms. Something will have to be done. I am concerned that the loving man in my life will not be quite so loving after finding out what simple pleasures ( clean sheets and ironed shirts etc. ) he has been denied all these years.

So here is my plan - if those silly women in washing powder adverts can do it, so can I. I will become a proud, feather duster carrying member of suburbia. I will, cook, clean, sew and possibly ( if we can find a place with a garden ) even grow my own veggies. I will thus establish my rightful place as the greatest girlfriend ever and stave off impending disaster.

Well, my first step to domestic bliss is to have a perfectly packed and ordered moving day. Problem: I'm no good at moving and am not the world's most organised person. My last move ended up in a relay between two flats only about a block apart during which we used 4 duffel bags to transport all our goods by filling them one end, walking down the road and emptying the contents on the floor of the new place. Not the most well thought out moving day I have to admit. We did have our reasons. We were turfed out on short notice due to the owner selling the place so we scarcely had time to find a new home, never mind pack.

Luckily I do have 2 and a half months of planning and packing time at my disposal. Plenty of time to co-ordinate one simple moving day. I hope. I will call it : Operation Masking Tape.