At least, that's what I tell myself. I really do think that over many years of marriage and responsibility I have evolved into Homo Domesticus (Almostus).
I cannot really explain this phenomenon. I only know that as a single student my room was so cluttered that the spiders were complaining to the landlord. And that now, although I do still manage to clutter the joint, I am relatively speaking, a neatish person. I am just as likely to be found moving things to their PROPER place, as I am to be leaving them lying around. In fact I have become at heart a wannabe minimalist who would love, if I could find a legal way of getting rid of all the children, to live a simple life. With a chair. And a plate. And a knife and fork. And not much else.
It is known for me to TELL the children to move THEIR stuff. OK, I do get a bit of the old hypocrite's guilt as I recall the look of horror on Ineke's face when she saw my student pad. But I tell them anyway.
And connected to this I have come to love efficiency, as though my Saxon genes had, after many years buried at the bottom of my personal gene pool swamp, managed to fight their way to the surface. So if a thing is worth doing (because if you don't do it you will be feel that remorseless stab of Procrastinator's Stitch under the rib cage) then it is worth doing once. And only once. Why would you want to repeat an activity, other than the pleasurable ones, when the repeating of said activity could have been avoided by careful planning.
So I think I have made my case. I am a New Man.
The only fly in the ointment?
It's very frustrating, but Ineke will tell you that I am still a right messy pup. She is the proverbial hard nut to crack. And I would try harder to crack it, but have you noticed what a mess cracked nut shells make?
The line "Well, I'm not messy, but I'm not neat either" is from this month's Fee Comes Fourth tune, Cleaning Out The Shed.
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