By Eithne Cullen

Welcome to May’s Thoughtful Tuesday page.

I was browsing on the internet and found this useful information: May 18^th is: Don’t Do The Dishes Day. I know for many people every day is ‘don’t do the dishes day’ and someone else has to clear their dirty crockery for them. I also know this could be seen, by some, as an incentive to eat out, therefore creating no washing up. But while we’re talking about ‘Mindset’ as our magazine theme, it got me thinking about our attitudes to clearing up, housework in general and the chores we have to face on a daily basis.

I asked our writers if they had any thoughts about housework in general; there are so many attitudes that there must be material about them and they would be very much a part of a mindset edition.

While I was polishing the silver, waiting for submissions to arrive, I came across this little story. Maybe it chimes with our mindset when it comes to a feminist (or social historical) response. It was the story of the man (around the time of the Suffragette movement) who employed a woman to be his housekeeper. After some time, he realised he couldn’t afford to pay her, so he married her instead. I will leave that there; draw your own conclusions! And enjoy the writing this idea has provoked.

Here’s a poem from Tavinder, who raises the question about whether it has to be done:

Has To Be?

Has to be clean, preen and shiny,
Otherwise, I’ll become whiny,
pick that up, put that away,
Has to be clean, preen, and shiny.

What will people think of me?
the cup left on the table, the dishes left in the sink,
the dust on the surface, the clothes left unclean.

Has to be?

Can’t sit still, can’t sit down,
pick that up, put that away,
has to be clean, preen and shiny,
otherwise, I’ll become whiny.

Too much pressure, feeling that overpressure,
isn’t it OK to sit down and leave it?
Does it matter what people will think of me?

Has to be?

Leave it til tomorrow, leave it for another day,
otherwise, I’ll become spiny with tiredness and fatigue,

I’ll leave it some other time, I’ll leave it another day,
after all, I am human, not a machine,
it doesn’t have to be this or that,

I’ll put myself on the sofa instead,
have a cup of tea, rest for a while,
who cares what people think of me?

© Tavinder Kaur New, 2025

Connect with Tavinder on X: @NewTavinder

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Silviya sent this piece and the accompanying image. I think both the writing and the image give a very clear picture of the narrator’s relationship with the chores she completes, and the mindset they create. I love the references to drinking a coffee she’d made for someone else, the Lego landmines and the chemically-induced daze she describes.

Wild Ramblings By A Domesticated Woman

Is this a trick? Surely this cannot be my reality, shackled to this sink. Rigged from the beginning. Raised up to serve. And, just as I am on the brink of a breakdown, my washing machine breaks down. Sending me spiralling as I stir the reheated cold coffee. Which wasn’t even for me!

The caged beast in me fights every expectation to be free. Yet, she’s bound by tradition and chained to the never-ending to-do-list. The hyacinth on the windowsill softens the grip. In awe of its ability to bloom in its allotted box. Staying in her place. Good girl. I take a sip.

I place the half empty cup on the fireplace, my spark wiped out as I wipe down the four walls that smother me. My thoughts like smoke escape from its seams. No longer tied down to tidying up the dining table for the third time and it’s not even nine in the morning.

Mourning for the time when I would flutter around the table legs as my mother moved the clutter. Paying no mind to her mindless mutter. I raise the cup to her. Mourning for time lost when I could find myself lost in a forest with pine trees towering over me.

Alas, I find myself towering over the bin. I top up the cup and tie the black bag with a clove hitch knot, like a sailor sailing away from this trashed-filled trench. Up and over the broken-down brown fence that needed to be changed some time ago.

And still, no shift is seen, as I toe the line. On my hands and knees, my stiff fingers raw from pulling out weeds in the front garden and now to scrubbing the floors. I left the cup outside. I wander around, lost in a chemically-induced daze from fighting the mould that threatens to subjugate the cracks between my pretty pink tiles.

As I clean around everyone else’s throne, my spirit wishes to be miles away, roaming free across unknown lands. Feeling the wind beneath my hair. Yet. Here I Am. Whipping up hair from a clogged drain, slowly going insane. I drink to ease the pain.

I trudge through the hallway in overstretched strides stepping over Lego landmines carrying boxes filled with my paradoxes. The cup balanced on it. Clocks rhyme in unison. Never enough time. Setting it aside to burden a heavier load, knees buckle as I go down running after it.

Tasks all blur as the day fades. Just like my will. Groceries, school runs, dinner… No time to stay still.

When I finally close up shop, I put away all that is sugar, salt and spice of my life behind closed doors for bare kitchen counters. I place the empty cup in the sink. The hyacinth withers away. I say goodnight to my dreams. To repeat this all over again.

© Silviya Vijeyaruban, 2025

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Mary Walsh’s take on the problem leads her to a creative, poetic state:

Lazy Me

One Saturday in summer
Domestic blues ensued
To find a place for everything
Was givin’ me the blues
The clothes were taking over
The shoes were even worse
So I gave it up for a mo
To jot a little verse
Oh the housework’s never ending
The chores are never done
I’d rather be sittin’
Out in the sun
But the loo needs a good scrubbing and there’s
Ironing to do
On this sunny Saturday morning
Domestic blues ensue!

© Mary L Walsh, 2025

Connect with Mary on Bluesky: @Melw66.bsky.social and Instagram: @Marelwa60

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Vrushali’s is a more balanced piece, looking at shared thoughts and differences about household chores between herself and her mother.

Household Chores

My mum is a superstar when it comes to managing household chores. She sets a rhythm that helps her breeze through everything she plans to tackle for the day, and she doesn’t get irritated if something unexpected happens.

When it comes to me, I hate being in a messy kitchen, especially when it’s crowded. I love having the space to myself when I’m cooking. While my mum enjoys fresh veggies served in a freshly prepared curry, I prefer meal prepping and whipping up meals quickly.

For chores like cleaning and grocery shopping, we schedule them for the weekends. We prefer visiting the store in person instead of ordering everything online and, on this, we totally align! We also enjoy tracking prices online and comparing them in-store. At the Friday Farmers Market, we often find fresh veggies and fruits at half the price of what’s sold online.

There’s a wave of quick e-commerce now that delivers anything within ten minutes. While Mum and I agree it’s great in emergencies, we also believe it’s important to stay connected to what’s happening on the ground.

I’ve seen my grandmothers lovingly care for their homes, and my mum is no different. They truly rejoice in the home’s splendour. Although I never gravitated toward household work myself  – being career-focused – I’ve found a shift in the past few years. I’ve started to enjoy ‘making a house a home’ and I’ve come to love doing household chores in a more intentional, scheduled way.

© Vrushali Khadilkar, 2025

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Moving away from the dishes for a moment, our last piece this month comes from Vic Howard and is all about writing. I’ve shared many of his pieces over the years in Write On! and Write On! Extra. His calm voice and genuine interest in telling the stories and getting them written down have always appealed to me. And, though we’ve never met, I feel I know him through his writing. Thanks for generously sharing again, Vic.

Teaching Yourself To Write

Writing can be one of the most invigorating experiences. We’ve all heard of writer’s block and, if you haven’t been in the habit of writing, probably believe you can never think of anything to write about. But do you ever stop thinking? I thought not. Writing is just putting thoughts down on paper; just as I am now.

The fact is that the mind is very complicated. We do daily chores and potter around, and all the while our thoughts are working away in the background: singing, planning, worrying; it’s endless. Writing has a strange way of tapping into this world and at the same time releasing ideas you didn’t know were lurking there.

The best literature isn’t always a clever story developed according to the rules of storytelling. Some of the most interesting is a stream of consciousness: thoughts and ideas that ebb and flow in the brain. Try just writing. Anything, on any subject. Don’t wait for inspiration. You might be surprised at what appears. Write as you think and suddenly you might find the thread of an idea appear that you hadn’t ‘thought’ before. If you can’t think of anything to write, then start by making a list of things that interest you. Put each on to a piece of card and make a bowl full of these. Stir and take one out. Write whatever comes into your head on that subject.

Make a cup of coffee, go back and read what you wrote and start again. You will gradually train your brain to think about things to write. I once had an irregular column in our local newspaper, which was a sort of Englishman’s view of life in Sweden. I rarely had any idea what I was going to write but just let things rumble away in the background. Not infrequently, I would suddenly get the feeling that something was ready to come out, so that’s when I sat down to write. I wouldn’t call it automatic writing, but my subconscious, which had been occupied, half took over.

We are all multi-personalities who display different aspects of ourselves each day: the mother/father, husband/wife, the friend, the work colleague – and each can be quite different. It’s the same with the brain. There is the person you think you are and the one you wish you were. Then there are the desires you keep hidden and the thoughts that make you blush.

Writing is a way to allow these different aspects of yourself to manifest themselves, perhaps as fictional characters in a story. What you write doesn’t have to be read by anyone else but writing and then reading the result can perhaps stimulate you to try again. Describe yourself as the superhero or super lover or super musician or super model. Fantasise on paper. Produce a group of these characters and you might find the basis for a story. Put them together in one place and see how they react to each other. Agatha Christie did this a hundred times.

Well-developed characters put together in a situation and made to react to each other due to circumstances is something the brain loves to work with. Write a detailed description of each character. Allow your mind to think about them for some time afterwards. It might take days or even weeks. Suddenly, you will find a situation developing you can write about.

I had no idea what I was going to write when I started this. It just developed out of nothing.

See what I mean?

© Vic Howard, 2025

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What a treat this page has been! Like Vic, I’m amazed at what people come up with when asked to share their mindsets on the page. See you next month.

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Issue 24, featuring John Marrs, is out now. You will find it in libraries and other outlets. Alternatively, all current and previous editions can be found on our magazines page here. 

You can hear great new ideas, creative work and writing tips on Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo or find us on Spotify.  

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