Starling, the online bank, have created an online tool for couples. Called Share the Load, it invites you to input the total number of hours you and your partner spend on household chores. It then calculates whether you live in domestic harmonious balance or whether one person is having all their needs met by their knackered drudge of a spouse.
Obviously I had a go. Instead of actual hours, I guesstimated the percentage of time my partner and I spend completing the list of jobs suggested. Things like cleaning and tidying, laundry, meal planning, and feeding children. (You want to try it? Click here, it's fun!) I whizzed through, breaking down the share for each of us, until I got the end result. It appears I do 45% of the chores, compared with my partner's 55%.
There are two things that spring to mind. Firstly, I do way more than I thought. Forty-five percent?! Blimey. The second is that I consider this an active stand against the patriarchal lumps that let their partners do everything. According to the website, only 29% of couples share the load equally. I imagine that percentage is even lower when the data is disaggregated and focused on straight couples only.
Either way, I'm doing a good thing for the world. As a modern woman in a hetero relationship, I must subconsciously feel it's my duty to do less than half of the household shit. Bobbling along at the 45% mark, is my way of redressing the historic imbalance that plagued the generations of my foremothers. World, you're welcome!
We're in a small amount of limbo right now. Covers and pictures and bits of technical stuff are being discussed and worked out. I keep rereading sections of text and changing the odd word here and there, but I'll be treading water for a bit longer, I think.
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| Photo by Johan Persson. |
Kenneth Branagh's currently giving the West End his King Lear and I got to see it last week. Despite reviewers giving it - as a friend commented - a solid 3 stars across the board, I really enjoyed it. At two hours, it's a breezy whizz through the text and you can be in the pub for 9.30pm. King Lear aficionados may well feel some valuable essence has been skipped. But for me - someone who read Lear once for Uni, can't remember much at all, and can now only think of it in terms of Succession - I was more than happy to be in the audience.
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| Metz Cream Earl Grey |
Have we ever talked about tea? It must've come up before now. Yeah? No? Can't remember? Well let me fill you in. Long story short, I drink gallons of the stuff. People talk about not feeling alive before their morning coffee, but for me it's tea. Decaf tea with skimmed milk, to boot. Not even riddled with stimulants but I'm still addicted. Weird huh!? But lo! I've recently discovered two recent riffs on my beloved morning brew. First of all, Metz Cream Earl Grey. Yep, you heard. It was the tea I was offered in Canada whilst travelling on the VIA trains. VIA's teabag of choice turned out to be the nicest tea I've ever had. When I got home, I scoured the Internet and managed to source a box of 25 teabags from Etsy. Postage from Canada meant each teabag has cost me over a pound so they're rationed to one drink every Saturday morning. They run out in January.
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| Homemade Chai - recipe here. |
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| St. Pancras station |
London, baby! Yep, two days away was just what I needed. I caught up with a mate, made a new friend, saw a play, ate out, walked a lot, saw the booky Christmas tree in St. Pancras, walked through a Christmas market, and came home knackered. Next week, I'm hibernating.
See you next Monday, same time same place, yeah? Nice one.
Have a lovely week, folks.
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