The other day I came across survey results claiming that women today can no longer perform certainly skills that were taken for read a generation ago.
So, I’m going to answer the same questions and then invite you to do the same, tag-style.
1. Make jam – no, can only just make a jam sandwich. In my defense I don’t actually eat the stuff either.
2. Sew a button on – well, I have actually got a sewing box, which I find embarrassingly grown up. I can manage to get a button to stay on a garment using thread, but mostly I use the safety pins to hold race bibs on, or clothes together.
3. Make clothes – my mom used to make me skirts and stuff when I was younger, I’m pretty sure my daughter prefers H&M to anything I could make her, especially as it would probably involve an awful lot of safety pins/ maybe Sid Viscious’ mom had a similar problem.
4. Knit – my nan used to make me knit dishcloths when I stayed at hers, but it stopped there fortunately. I do actually have a friend who knits pretty groovy stuff, I can always outsource her if needs be.
5. Embroider – alas, yet another motherly talent I’m lacking, I don’t even sew name labels on my kids’ school stuff, I fine an indelible pen does the job fine.
On the other hand I do have the odd skill up my sleeve that Granny, or even my mum, didn’t have;
1. Widgets – not only do I know what they are but sometimes, (only sometimes mind) I can even get them to appear on my blog, and I’m not even very techno-savvy.
2. Change a fuse – In our universe it’s Husband who sits in bed screaming like a proverbial girl while I go & do the dirty work. He’s got in right of course, but then I think about how if we ever split up I wouldn’t have to chop the legs of all his trousers, I could just take out a few light bulbs and flick the mains switch instead.
3. Check for oil in the car – or in fact get the bonnet up, after having a car that needed a liter of water to drink every 10 miles (like myself!) I’ve learnt a lot. I don’t think my mum even put petrol in her car herself, when she had one that is.
4. Run, marathons at that – definitely something you didn’t see very often a generation ago, although there’s a retired lady in my village who still runs rings around me in our village race.
5. Speak a foreign language – not something any of my ancestors accomplished, well the recent ones that is, the older ones probably had Norse or something off to pat. Useful too, living abroad and all that.
So that’s me ladies and gents. What about yourselves? What granny tasks can you manage or not? Let me know in your comments or add a link to your post.
