Virginia Ironside
‘I’m struck by the weirdly immaculate state of retired people’s homes. Every cup has to be on a saucer and every saucer put on a mat; brand-new soap has to be evident in every guest room’
Most retired people claim to be so busy they just don’t have enough hours in the day to keep up with things. I’ve always been suspicious of this, and recently I realised that many of them are only busy because they work under Parkinson’s Law – Parkinson’s Law being, for those of you who don’t remember it, ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.’
Am I just a slob who has never stopped being a filthy teenager or do kitchen surfaces really need to be wiped down every single time you use them? Could you not use the same mug you used for tea for breakfast as you use for coffee two hours later? Do sheets need changing more than once a fortnight?
I am pretty sure that no one visiting my house comes away saying how grubby it is – I know a grubby house when I see one – but I’m often struck by the weirdly immaculate state of retired people’s homes. Every cup has to be put on a saucer and every saucer put on a mat; milk has to be decanted into a jug and then thoroughly washed after every teatime; brand-new soap has to be evident in every guest room (heaven knows how they use up the old soap) and feet have to be wiped sometimes on several grades of doormat (that’s if you’re not encouraged to take your shoes off the very moment you enter the hall).
I was staying with a retired friend recently, and she said she had to make a shopping list before we visited the local supermarkets. I thought she’d be no more than a minute. But no. First the list had to be written out by hand. Then she insisted on taking it to another room to type it up. When she returned a quarter of hour later I discovered that the stuff to be bought from Sainsbury’s had been typed on a sheet marked SAINSBURY in orange, using a different font from to the rest of the list. Similarly, the Waitrose list was headed WAITROSE in green, and underneath this heading all the shopping had been divided into sub-sections headed Fruit and Vegetables, Groceries, Household, Bathroom, and Bread, Cakes and Biscuits. These sections, she told me, had been arranged in the correct order according to where they lay in the store, making her progress around the shop simpler. I gathered later that she had actually made these lists into templates, to make her life easier.
When I suggested that while we were out in the car, it might be worth getting some more petrol, which was on the way, she shook her head. ‘No, we’ll do that tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I like to wait until the petrol is lower before refilling the tank. And I will need to get the shopping back quickly to put it in the fridge.’
I hesitate to describe lunch. It was just bread, cheese, salad and fruit, but the number of plates and knives and spoons that were used was worthy of a French aristocrat’s banquet. There was a knife for the butter which lived in a dish which lived on a plate; there were napkins in freshly polished silver napkin rings; there was a spoon in the sugar, and fruit knives and grape scissors and side plates galore, one for bread, one for cheese, one for fruit and one for the salad, which had had to be thoroughly washed and put into a salad spinner before it was served. All these virtually clean dishes had to be rinsed thoroughly before being stacked in the washing-up machine. The tablecloth had to be shaved with a special crumbgathering machine.
Of course I had a lovely time but by the end of my stay my blood pressure soared as I watched, with growing impatience and frustration, my hostess’s painstakingly slow progress throughout the days. Special aprons for picking the fruit in the garden, special secateurs for deadheading the roses – ‘Now where did I put them? No, you can’t use the kitchen scissors … just a minute…’, everything rinsed and dried.
As I left, she said: ‘I hope you’ve had a good rest.’ Well, yes. But in truth I was knackered. And I expect she was as she doubtless took my duvet to be drycleaned and swilled out the vase in which my bedroom roses had been living, with bleach.
It’s knackering being retired. And it’s true. You just don’t have a minute.
Virginia Ironside’s latest book is No Thanks! I’m Quite Happy Standing! (Quercus £16.99).