Bloke job

I have had a day of being an Emancipated Woman.

I had generally imagined I was one of those already, except I suspect that secretly, in my soul, I wasn’t.

It started off this morning when I changed a lightbulb. I did this all by myself.

I never change lightbulbs. This is not exactly because of technical incompetence, although I must acknowledge that this plays a part, but because Mark is almost a foot taller than I am, and can reach ceilings with relative ease. I have no such advantage, and so the whole exercise this morning involved some precarious teetering on the edge of the bath, and some anxious swearing.

It was a complicated lightbulb, because it was the wrong sort for the fitting and had been screwed into an adaptor, with a little wire bit to stop it falling out. The reason for this is that some time ago, after reading several warbling articles in newspapers, we decided that we were probably deficient in Vitamin D, due to inadequate winter sunshine in the occasionally inhospitable Lake District climate.

We considered the various implications of this, wondered what the early symptoms of rickets might be, and contemplated the dullness of the diet recommended by the said newspapers as a cure. In the end we decided that an engineering solution would probably be the best, and replaced all our bathroom lights with ones which had been thoughtfully designed for a lizard aquarium, and offered the full spectrum of sunlight needed by any reptile, spider or other basking creature.

We are not reptiles, but the bathroom is the place where we take all our clothes off and occasionally bask. Hence, for twenty minutes every evening, whilst abluting ourselves, we are bathed in the brilliance of pretend sunlight. We have been rather pleased with this hedonistic solution.

It must be working well, because neither of us has rickets at all.

This morning I replaced one of the sunshine-generating lightbulbs all by myself. Then after that I went on to still-greater heights and replaced the saw blade on the terrifying wood saw in the garden.

We have a long and anxious relationship, the saw and I. That is to say, I am terrified of it, and it squats in the corner and leers at me, like a disgusting old neighbour at a children’s birthday party.

I hoped that today might improve matters a little.

It had become so dreadfully blunt that cutting anything was beginning to be impossible without the use of some considerable physical force. The result was a deafening noise, some black smoke, and aching muscles. As it happened, we had a spare blade, because I ordered two last time, and today I took it down off its hook.

Goodness me, it was an adventure.

Fortunately I had asked Mark first, otherwise I would never, ever have worked out that it unscrewed the wrong way. It was Righty Loosey, and Lefty Tighty, who would have thought it? It needed a little key thing, and then a bit fell out into the sawdust and was lost almost for ever, but I found it, and then there was some fumbling about trying not to cut my fingers off, and then I had a sharp saw.

You might be pleased to hear that I had prudently unplugged it before I started, just in case.

I can hardly tell you the happiness of having a saw which slices easily and neatly through old floorboards. It is a simple pleasure, not least because of its confirmation of my engineering expertise. I took it off with an Alan key, applied the brake and everything, and replaced the blade all by myself.

Once I had finished sawing firewood, and emptying the dogs, and going to the post office, I embarked on yet another gender-equality project.

I had a little pot which was broken, and I glued it back together.

This was difficult as well, because it was the sort of glue that has two tubes and has to be mixed. Usually this is far too technical for my grade of expertise and training, and so Mark does that sort of thing, but today I was determined.

I had very sticky fingers afterwards, but I did it.

Hence it has been a very exciting day, I have practically become a bloke after all of this stuff, I will probably start leaving the lavatory seat up soon.

I told Number One Daughter about it on the telephone this evening. She sniffed in a superior sort of manner.

I never change lightbulbs, she said. That’s a bloke’s job.

Probably it is.