I have just had an eye-watering quote for two tiny pairs of curtains, and it's made me wish, yet again, that I could sew. But I HATE sewing. I can do a button. Just. And that's it.
When I was eleven, we had needlework lessons at school. We had to make an overall (why? I never did find out. I have never in my life worn an overall). It was blue gingham. Every time poor wretched Miss Campion picked mine up, the belt fell off. She despaired. I despaired. I never did get to take the damn thing home. The next term, I dropped needlework and took up Latin (no. Me neither).
I can't paint walls, either. I make a terrible mess. I have never in my life cleaned an oven. I hate ironing. Ditto dusting. I like to think I'm a Modern Woman. But no. I'm just an Inadequate Woman.
I think the weather's finally getting to me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Some of us just have better things to do.
ReplyDeleteI hope so, Keith. Oh, I do hope so!
DeleteYou're a woman you had babies... men can't do that.... Yet.
ReplyDeleteYes the weather get to me too, but I'm lucky it has got inside my home... yet.
Sorry that should've been hasn't got inside my home yet... There's more on the way Oh hmmm.
DeleteOh yes. Babies! I adore babies and have had four, so maybe I'm a sort of woman?
DeleteYou are 'woman'...no further explanation or apology needed.
ReplyDeleteThank you for those kind words!
DeleteYou are NOT inadequate, Frances! Think of all the things you CAN do :-) x
ReplyDeleteI've tried, Teresa.. But I think the rain has washed away all my confidence!
DeleteOh Frances, I think the constant rain and gloomy grey sky is having a detrimental effect on us all. You are such a good writer - who cares about ovens (ugh), dusting (double ugh) and the rest? x
DeleteIf being a proper woman was about all those things (though I like ironing and don't mind cleaning the oven) - or, in fact, about having babies - I wouldn't be one, either. But I dare say I am a proper woman nonetheless, and so are you!!
ReplyDeleteBut I don't even look glamorous ( as you do in all your lovely photos)!
DeleteWell said everybody and ditto from me. We all wish we could do something that others seem to have no problem with - like writing novels. You are way ahead in that department.
ReplyDeleteAh, but my earnings don't in any way reflect all that effort. I'm going to launch Thirty Shades of Pink. Do you think it would catch on?
Delete"An Inadequate Woman"...has the ring of a book title to me.
ReplyDeleteWhat a good idea, Jill!
DeleteYou are a zillion times more than adequate. Just look at your lovely family and your gorgeous novels.
ReplyDeleteI buy curtains too. I cannot sew at all. The teacher held up my sewing for the class to ridicule. My attempts never made their way home either. They were never finished. But sewing just wasn't for me. My mother can sew and knit so well and tried in vain to teach me. But then she can't speak German or write stories!
Now I feel better, Joanna, because I can speak a smattering of German. ( Don't you love the word " smattering"?)
DeleteThe self-cleaning oven, will solve one of your problems. For the rest "They have people for that, don't they?"
ReplyDeleteWe have an Aga now. You can't clean Aga ovens. Ha!
DeleteThese things have nothing to do with being a woman. I can and do iron my own shirts, I cook and I can use a needle (at least I did, before I retired, on living flesh - but with an anaesthetic, of course!). And once I made a soft toy for one of my kids - a pig out of some old corderoy (I can sew but cannot spell) stuffed with kapok.
ReplyDeleteI got in to awful trouble with Agnes the other day - I was ironing some bits of mine when the builders arrived and caught me. Why do women so hate it to be known that their husbands sometimes to their own ironing.
I am quite sure you are a real woman, Frances. But am I, I wonder, a real man?
I am so entertained at the thought of you ironing your bits, that I no longer care what kind of woman I am. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteFour babies definitely puts you in the 'woman' category, Frances - and of course you're glamourous... you're a published author!
ReplyDeleteI have no babies, and also have no interest in shoes and handbags... should I worry?
Shoes and handbags? What are shoes and handbags? But of course you're a woman, BB. You have that particular female sense of humour
ReplyDeleteII am seriously pissed off. I've just written the most brilliant comment I've ever written and it disappeared into the ether.
ReplyDeleteYour feelings are so last century Frances. (See I've learned something from my young friends) Like Dr Tegner I iron though my sewing is second rate. I can lay bricks. I have wired and plumbed a pottery. I have rebuilt a Morris Minor. I have soft toys on my bed. I have fathered two children (I am physically unsuited to motherhood - thank heaven). As a male of a certain age I have no doubt whatsoever of my maleness. Nor have I any doubt of your womanness. But does any of that matter? What matters is that we are whom we are.
ReplyDeleteGB, I think it was just the thought of how much I could save if I could only make those curtains!
ReplyDeleteI feel much better today.