Reclaiming the Kitchen

Flipping Heck! I've just realised that I've got a lot of stuff to do. We've been saying for ages that we'll move into the new house in August and although lots of things have been chosen, less has been ordered and none has been fitted. Bert and I went to measure floors for tiles and so on. Now that the concrete floors are down and the walls are plastered the house looks scarily big. I've decided I'm not sure about the floor tiles, which are a neutral sandy colour, as there is going to be such a big expanse of them. I'd like to put linoleum in the bedrooms. Linoleum? Well it's clean, dog hair resistant, healthy and natural. It's also bloody expensive and hard to source. I've been in a few shops in Ballymena and have been looked at askance. One wee skitter started to tell me about this modern stuff called vinyl. Pah! They'll all be wanting lino in a couple of years time. Then Bert starts messing around with decisions we made years ago. In the kitchen/dining room there is a fireplace. We decided a long time ago to put a little stove in there. I didn't want any kind of fireplace in my kitchen but Bert did. I certainly did not want an open fire, as they attract men, so we compromised on a stove. Let me explain. All the time I've lived in this house the kitchen has been a room for living in as well. It's where the phone, fax and filing cabinet are kept. So Bert uses it as an office and entertains his mates in it from morning to night. Little wonder I hardly ever get it mopped. So in the new house Bert wants a sun room so he gets a sun room. It's not one of those silly looking things with a pointy ceiling that is stuck on to the side, it looks like part of the house - and it is. And it's there that Bert is going to keep his sofas, his phone, fax and filing cabinet and his hordes of long legged friends. He will also have his own little stove to keep him from hanging around mine. See I've got it all planned out. Years of feminism are ending up with Nelly reclaiming the kitchen! So despite the decision taken a year ago he said, "What shall we do with this kitchen fireplace? Shall we have an open fire?" No Bert we shall not. Definitely not. No way. Imagine all the men standing in front of it toasting their arses. Isn't going to happen. Then as if one nutty mama wasn't enough we've got Pearlie saying "I dinny like that house, I dinny like that oul Ballintoy dash ye's have on it. It makes my skin crawl." Even better that, than Matty's refusal to cut into an orange because the thought of it being bitter sets her teeth on edge. I wonder if I'll be mad and irrational when I'm seventy something? Probably. I'm more than halfway there already.