Monday 14 July 2008

A Day in My Life - Yogurt, Guilt and Gender!

Well, this is my third go at charting my day for Jenny's min-social history project and it's the first chronicled on which the window-cleaner did not come! I was expecting him all day...But I digress, here is my ordinary day.

3:30 am: Woke to the sound of the milkman. Except I'm not sure it is a milkman I am hearing. It is the sound of an electric engine going down my street and I hear it quite often, however, I NEVER see any milk bottles outside people's houses so I feel sure that the milk van sound is perhaps something else. I consider two things:
a. waking the DH up and discussing what the mysterious sound could possibly be. I wisely decide against this course of action on the grounds of marital felicity.
b. That I am being haunted by the ghost of "Ernie...who drove the fastest milk van in the west". The thought of a ghostly Bennie Hill driving up and down my street in a milk van, looking for lonely housewives to frolic with, is not a happy one but, despite these night terrors, I do eventually settle back to sleep. Until...
5:30 am: Woke to the sound of "mummy, it's morning time". So despite the black out blind the little one is up at the crack of dawn (quite literally). The DH goes to her bed and she snuggles down with me. I don't think she will go back to sleep until...
7:30 am (or so I think): I hear the DH shutting the front and getting in his car. I've overslept. The little one is still fast asleep in my arms. I hear the DH talking to someone...then step up the stairs. He tells me that my eldest girl's friends have just called for so they can walk to school. It is 8:05!!!...I have really overslept!
8:05 to 8:15am: I rush about getting the eldest ready for school. Her friends are waiting for her. I pack her bag and make her a slice of toast whilst she gets dressed. She is out of the door at 8:15 and this is nothing short of miraculous.
8:15 to 8:45 am: The little one and I sit down to a proper breakfast. I have poached eggs on toast and begin to feel guilty. I'm rather obsessed (yet another obsession!) with giving the family a proper breakfast since I read this article about skipping breakfast and bad health! I feel a little bad that my DH didn't get any breakfast and the eldest had a slice of toast on the run. Isn't it funny how generally laid back, go-with-the-flow kinda women, carry guilt around with us all the time? I have so much guilt I should buy myself a rucksack just to carry it around with me...perhaps I shall even fashion one out of that piece of Cath Kidston fabric I have in my knitting basket...if you're going to have to carry guilt around with you, you may as well do so in a snazzy, vintage manner!!!
8:45 to 11:am: This is what I do:
wash and dress
wash and dress little one
make beds
pick up towels, pants, books etc, etc on bedroom floors
put breakfast dishes into soak
walk little one to pre-school
buy milk and pesto at the supermarket
walk back from supermarket
sort out recycling
tidy up toys in the garden
look at general state of flowers and veg
wash up
make yogurt
put some washing on
ironing
vacuuming
talk to DH on telephone
pray for people as part of a prayer team I belong to....
make a cup of tea and sit down looking at my new books which have just been delivered by the nice, smiley postie.
11:00 to 11:30 am: I take my tea break and read a little of "The Woman's Book" by Florence B Jack and "Are Women Human?" by Dorothy L Sayers. The former is a book I've wanted for years, and I finally found a copy for under £50, so yes, book addict that I am, I couldn't resist buying it. It deserves a post all of its own, so I shan't go into too much detail about it now, but the latter is a book I thought I should read, not simply because I am a huge fan of Dorothy L Sayers, but because I want to see what one of the best Christian, female, thinkers of our time has to say on the issues of gender relations. Being Anglican, gender and sexuality are issues which I cannot help but have to think about, simply because of the growing schism within the communion. Again, it seems that online too, the issue of gender hierarchy within Christianity as a whole, is such a major topic of discussion and is also the cause of many an online debate. I wonder why this is so? No doubt the issues are complex and important and fueled by a particular kind of Christian idealism. After half an hours reading I get the idea that Sayers thinks we should treat members of the opposite sex as though they were human beings, without classifying them by type or group...that male and female are just classifying and subordinate nouns for describing human beings...I shall report back when I've read a little more.
11:30 am to 12:00pm: I dry up the breakfast things and prepare lunch for the little one and I. I then take a stroll to the little one's pre-school and walk her home. We have a general chat about her morning and she says she's starving.
12:00 to 3:15 pm: This is what we do:
eat lunch
wash up after lunch
put sheets in the washing machine
colour in
read Charlie and Lola books
go out in the garden and look for snails and buttercups (probably tells you a good deal about the state of my garden!!!)
make fruity muffins
drink more tea
knit the beginning of a girlie cricket jumper for the eldest
watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
take a stroll to big school to pick up the eldest...
3:15 to 7:15 am: After walking home from school the girls snack on muffins and play with their friends up in their rooms. I have another cup of tea and consider picking some veg from the garden in preparation for the evening meal. I wash up the baking things and afterwards pick my veg. Just a courgette, some broad beans and some spring onions... a small harvest but mine own! I get a call from the parent of a prospective pupil and I make dinner...veg pasta with pesto...oh, and fruit muffins with yogurt! After dinner the eldest one helps me wash up and I blog about my day. I'm waiting for my friend to give me a lift to the baptism prep we do for our church, so my day isn't over. The little one is with her dad watching the telly in the living room and life plods on as usual. Well I hope you enjoyed reading about my day, crikey, I hope I haven't sent you to sleep...don't dream about ghostly milk men whatever you do!

God Bless!

10 comments:

Ann said...

Hello again,
Nice reading about your day. Interesting books you have there, again. I haven't read Dorothy Sayers for years. Time for a another look.

Dulce Domum said...

Hi Anne
I love Dorothy L Sayers books. I'm definitely going to post on "The Woman's Book", a really great piece of women's social history.

Maymomvt said...

I haven't seen "The Woman's Book" either. Looks interesting. It was fun to read about your day. I'm sitting her uploading photos so I can post about my day.

A happy heart at home said...

I enjoyed reading about your day. I posted mine, too.

~Susan

Vera said...

Your post isn't drowsy, I enjoyed reading it.
We too have a mysterious "milkmen" in our street. Well, I know it isn't a milkmen, because there are no one in Germany but there is the sound of a car evernight, same time. I reckon, it's somebody who delivers something to the photoshop across the street.

Tia said...

They look like two interesting books; I will have to keep an eye out for them both.

We do have a milkman but I never hear the van; perhaps I get the milk and you get the noise?

Tia

Anonymous said...

Oh no, where did my comment go? I wrote something all witty, that I now can't remember, about milkmen!!

Dulce Domum said...

Hi Sarah
"The Woman's Book" is a really interesting glimpse into an time of remarkable social change. So far I'm loving it. I'll pop over and say hello once I've made myself another morning coffee!

Hi Susan
I'm glad you enjoyed it, I shall pop over to your blog in a bit.

Hi Vera
I'm glad you too have a mysterious nightly visitor...I shall feel less alone when "Ernie" comes tonight!!!

Hi Tia
That thought is a bit X-Files-y...do you think Spooky Mulder would come and investigate if we asked him?

Hi Sarah
Ah well, that's the thing about witticisms, you either forget them, or they come to you several hours after you need them!

Jenny said...

I'm looking forward to hearing about The Woman's Book.

Dulce Domum said...

Hi Jenny
I'll try to publish about "The Womans Book" today or tomorrow. Are you feeling better now?