Never hesitate to do a favour for a friend, or a bathroom tap.

My wife is pleased with the progress I'm making with my Domestic Gods course. I de-stoned some plums only yesterday while she was out shopping. And cooked them! And I thought to take them off the Aga hot-plate after the plums had boiled over and covered the surface in bubbling, brown, smelly goo. Not immediately of course because the computer isn't in the kitchen and it takes a while for smells to travel. And its not a bad smell really......at first. It was a tad unpleasant by the time the smoke-alarm went off though, I must admit.

She's so pleased with my work in the kitchen that in return she's offered to take on some of the DIY jobs about the house, grouting and stuff, man's work really. I don't like to over-load her, but if it makes her happy, what can one do?

I'm not sure, but I think her sudden interest in DIY might be because I bought a 50kg. bag of ready-mixed mortar the other day and I took it out of the car boot and put it down for a few minutes while I got my keys out. I must have left it on the door-step and it seems the idiot mortar-manufacturer had put it in a paper-bag which isn't waterproof, so that when it rained in the night, the mortar set solid, still in the bag on the door-step. I'd forgotten all about it until the next morning.

I didn't know she'd fall over it, did I?

They're only bruises.

I'm not sure I should be encouraging her to get involved in this DIY thing though. My neighbour, the one with the lovely old house and the beautiful young wife, is good at DIY. He was re-hanging their bathroom door the other day and he decided he needed a new hinge, so since his wife was just going into town to do some shopping he asked her to call at the hardware shop and pick up a new hinge.
In the hardware shop she asked the price of a set of beautiful bathroom taps which caught her eye. The assistant said "I'm afraid those taps are very expensive because they're plated in real gold. They price is £2,500". "Oh dear", she replied, downcast, "That's way out of my price range".
So the man went into the storeroom to get the hinges, and as he went he said over his shoulder "Do you wanna screw for the hinge?"
She hesitated for a moment and then shouted back, "No, but I will for the taps".