35. Housedad’s Broken Promises: All the things I said I’d do but know will never get done

When my wife and I swapped roles four months ago after I was made redundant, I promised her I would do all the jobs around the house that I had never had time to do when I was working.

I also promised her that I would throw myself into school life with the same gusto she did when she was a Stay-At-Home-Mum. I would, I declared, tackle Housedadding with the same zeal I approached my Working Life. It hasn’t happened, it ain’t gonna happen.

At first, I thought I would never be able to llve with the mess and the chaos of home life. I was a Control Freak at work and I was a Control Freak as a Reluctant Housedad. Initially.

And then cataracts started to grow on my eyeballs. Stuff that used to drive me insane with irritation went completelu unnoticed. Before, I would come home and complain about the kids toys lying all over the living room; of the swimming pool created in the bathroom by our three young children’s bathtime merriment; of the stray peas and flecks of mashed potato that had become welded to the kitchen floor.

But now they don’t bother me, not because I’m not bothered, but because they have become part of my landscape. And fortunately, my Successful Other Half doesn’t seem to notice them, either.

This is all obviously small beer. A couple of hours with the Dyson, a good wipe with a J-Cloth, and Hey Presto!, order restored.

The big beer, though – the giant keg of Irritant Ale – is the stuff that is crumbling the flat. This is the stuff that Real Men, Men With Power Tools, Men Who Can Do It Themselves, excel in. Namby Pamby Reluctant Housedads like myself might well be able to turn a mean trick with an iron or rustle up a Parmesan-crumbed chicken in a thrice, but when it comes to Essential Maintenance, we’re hopeless.

Aware that I was quite possibly living on borroed time in this respect, I did a photographic survey of the Jobs That Need Doing. Here’s the evidence….and the excuses for doing nothing about them!

1. CRACKS IN THE WALLS
And not just one wall, either. They’re all over the place. Spreading like cobwebs across the kitchen and the bedrooms.
Excuse: Well, clearly, the walls are coming-a-tumbling down. This is not neglect, this is science; this is gravity at work. I saw it on a Prof Brian Cox documentary the other day. It may be the Weakest Force in the Universe, Dear Prof, but it’s also the strongest, otherwise we’d be zooming out into the dark depths of Outer Space. You can’t fight gravity. I rest my case.

2. ROTTING DOOR AND WINDOW FRAMES
The paint has flaked off to such an extent that water has seeped deep into the wood, making it nigh on impossible to open the door to our roof terrace with the aid of a crowbar (I know this for a fact because that’s what I used to prise it open to take this photograph).
Excuse: It would need sanding down, filling in, painted with primer, then painted again. I haven’t got time for all that – I’ve got three kids to slave over. Besides, it all that dust couldn’t possible be good for their fragile, still-forming lungs.

3. DEAD PLANTS ON THE TERRACE ‘GARDEN’
My wife longingly and lovingly grew, nurtured and tended to these last summer, producing quite a respectable harvest of lettuces, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and a veritable pot pourri of herbs that I used in my cooking. Now they’re as dead as the wood on the door frames.
Excuse: Well, what do you expect me to do? I can’t get onto the bloody terrace because the door is jammed. Anyway, the local organic grocer sells some lovely herbs: it’s important to support your local shopkeeper.

4. BROKEN TOILET FLUSHER
God knows how this happened, but with five of us squeezing into a tiny bathroom, it had a certain inevitability about it. Must stop feeding the children their Five-a-Day.
Excuse: It will teach the kids how much they take for granted. When-I-Were-A-Lad we didn’t have an outside toilet. Until we moved to a brand spanking new council house during the slum clearances of Manchester, we had to go to a little shed at the bottom of the garden. A broken toilet flush? Pah! Character building.

5. DAISY-BUILT BIRD BOX NOT HUNG
My nine-year-old stepdaughter made this at a crafts event and when she brought it home as a present for her Mum she was cuffed to pieces. ‘We’ll get blue tits and great tits and finches and maybe even a parrot,’ she declared.
Excuse: Think again, eldest one. I’ve seen the magpies fixing their beady eyes on it through out bedroom window. And our bedroom is precisely where it’s staying.

6. INGRAINED CARPET STAINS
My God, these are stubborn buggers. I have tried to shift them. But all brands of carpet cleaner and even my best efforts with my beloved steam cleaner haven’t removed so much as a molecule of dirt. I have no idea what said dirt actually is, but it ain’t going nowhere. They’ll be around when the rest of the house falls to piece or the Earth stops spinning.
Excuse: If you squint your eyes and look hard enough, it’s like one of those 3-D pictures. Look! There’s a dolphin breaking the surface. Look again! It’s Saturn and its rings. And again! It’s the face of Christ.

BUT HERE’S ONE I DID SAY I’D DO AND I’VE DONE: A NEW DISHWASHER.

Now you don’t see it…..

Now you do!