Dishwashing is contraindicated

I went to visit my GP last week, and as usual I had a shopping list full of things to ask her about. But to omit the TMI and suchlike, I'll just tell you that I was advised to stop doing the dishes if I want my hand eczema to get better.

Actually, what she recommended was that we get a dishwasher, but a) we can't afford any big ticket items at the moment and b) the boy is biased against them. And apparently wearing rubber gloves religiously for all dishwashing and cleaning tasks is not good enough, because the gloves themselves can harbour nasty fungi and bacteria. So I thought about how I was going to break the news to the boy.

The boy was not overjoyed to hear that he'd have to cook and do the dishes, though in my own private opinion which I pretty much keep to myself and a couple of hundred of my most attentive listeners/readers, he should count himself lucky that he's a bloke and therefore completely blind to all the dusting, mopping and bathroom cleaning that he hasn't had to do thus far.

I had told the boy this news over the phone, and all the way home I stressed that he might rebel and leave me with no option but to produce a line-by-line report of all the household chores that are mysteriously done, without his input, in order to avoid us living in a veritable pigsty, over the last decade we have shared.

But when I got home he was already finishing off a sinkload of dishes, and I mentally kicked myself for assuming the worst.

I promised that as soon as my hands got better I'd start doing dishes again (until they got worse again anyway). But it's been a week and they haven't, so he might be in for a long haul...