Gardening

The Camero has gone! So I had to make sure the space left behind was put to good use...quickly.

My reply

Thanks for all the comments so far. Dale, I think you are right about the desire to nurture and be nurtured being experienced by both men and women. YP, women too, 'look out wistfully on potential conquests' and this is where the difference comes, I think. Whereas men are wistful and then move on, women tend to get stuck there and find it hard to move on. Is it all to do with men's ability to compartmentalise their lives or maybe women's desire to nurture? It seems to me that women have an almost infinite capacity to forgive neglectful or thoughtless treatment by the men in their lives and find it so hard to give up on a bad job and walk away.

A question

A question for all you male readers out there to reflect on, but ladies are welcome to contribute too:

It arises from a conversation with a counselling friend and experiences in the counselling context.
Do you think that men don't need relationships as much as women, or at least that they are less dependent on them and if so, why?
Answers will be gratefully received in the comments box.

Update

So what's been going on chez Jennyta since my self-imposed silence?
Mainly a constant round of work, counselling course, counselling placement, supervision for counselling, plus the usual shopping, housework etc squeezed in as and when. Oh and looking for a teaching job for September.
In fact I have only applied for two so far, neither of which resulted in an interview. There have been other jobs advertised but gone are the days when I will consider a 2 term temporary cover for someone's maternity leave which, in addition to teaching (it's what you're there for, after all), requires the lucky appointee to 'engage in the full life of the school' which means being there 24/7 to run after-school clubs, attend PTA meetings etc and, in one case, to take children on a residential trip. There was also one small village school which I went to visit where the head teacher mentioned most of the above but added 'cleaning the toilets if necessary' to the list.
There are other schools too, which send you a job description and details of the school which, reading between the lines, amounts to:
'Our children regularly swing from the lights and need to be tied down in order to have any chance of learning. How good are your karate skills?'
Shelf-stacking at Tesco's is beginning to look like an attractive option!

Jeans

Last week I bought my first ever pair of jeans. Yes, really!

Mess? What mess?

YP's comment on my last post set me thinking. I have been a tidy person since the age of eight. I can remember exactly when I came to the conclusion that chaos was not the way to go when I couldn't close the lid on the desk in my bedroom and suddenly decided that I was going to 'TIDY UP.' So I did. The trouble was, that although I was a convert, those around me were yet to be convinced. My sister made untidiness an art form and probably still does.
Then the children came along. I have vivid memories of coming home from work and having to climb over the mountains of schoolbags, lunch-boxes, PE kits, trumpet cases, discarded shoes, blazers etc in the hall - the detritus of the children's school-day.
Bedrooms were another source of contention. Unlike me, my children were always hoarders, and that included empty boxes, carrier bags (Younger Daughter had a serious collection of 'designer' carrier bags) and of course, the ubiquitous dirty coffee cups, crisp packets and chocolate wrappers. There were times, I confess, when I would wait for the boys to be out in order to do a grand clear-out of their rooms in order to avoid the protests about how that dirty plate had been under the bed for six weeks and wasn't doing any harm to anyone.
I dreamed of interior designer chic, minimalism - OK I would have settled for just plain tidiness!
When I first met Keith, there were three full black bin bags on his kitchen floor, so I certainly can't claim that I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. In fact, he can be tidy when he wants to be, it's just getting him to want to be that's the problem.
Maybe the new shed, being delivered next week, could be the answer. NASA would fit nicely in there...
No, you're right, I couldn't be so cruel... could I? Maybe I need counselling.

The floor, the floor!

Last Thursday was the big day - the new floor-covering day. I got quite excited about it. (How sad is that!) Instead of the beige carpet, sadly and indelibly spotted and stained, we were about to move back into the 21st century and have floors to be proud of. There was some animated discussion about what we were going to have - carpet (Keith) or laminate (me) so in the end, we compromised, as in I decided that we would have carpet in the living room and laminate in the dining room and I got to choose both. You can see the results in the photos.

A woman of lesser strength of character than yours truly would have decided to keep the status quo when she gazed on the myriad piles of cables coiled behind NASA and the TV cabinet like giant worm casts. As it was, I did momentarily quail at the sight but by then floorcoverings and fitters were booked, so we set to and dismantled most of it the night before. In the morning, Keith pulled out a few more cables before airily informing me that it was all ready and departing hastily for work.

Putting it all back together again, of course, took a little longer and was slightly more challenging but I got there in the end. I say 'I' because, of course, Keith made sure he stayed out of the way until all was back to normal.

Well, what did you expect?