Official: Housework Bad For Health

I've had writers' hands from a very early age. Or at least Writer's Finger - an affliction similar to Housewife's Knee - caused by Catholic nuns at primary school standing over me to make sure I was holding my fountain pen at exactly 45 degrees and making me so nervous that I held the pen tight enough to form a permanent callous at the top of my middle finger and a misshapen nail. I should sue those nuns - I could have been a hand model (were it not for the chippolata fingers and nail-biting . . .) which I'll bet is a lot less stressful and better paid. On the other, er, hand, I like imagining that I'll get better at writing as I get older, but those poor hand models are probably washed-up by my age. 

Speaking of washing-up, my writers' hands took a battering on holiday, but it proved to me once and for all that cleaning is very bad for my health. It was Day Two in our little campsite cabin and I came over all 1950s and decided to hand-wash some clothes. By the time I'd finished, I could practically see my knuckles! I'd rubbed so hard the flesh was raw and every time I bent my fingers was agony. And not just that - The Australian had to take over all the washing-up and hand-washing for the rest of the holiday . . . 

Top holiday tip: if you park your car in the St Louis car park in Boulogne on a Saturday night intending to drive to the ferry in the morning, you will find that in very very small writing it says that the damn thing is closed on Sundays so you will have to locate a police station and beg them to call the car park owners to come and open up and they'll do so very kindly (you won't even mind the look of mocking disbelief or the fact that you're the laughing-stock of the local cop shop) and you'll race off to the ferry terminal to find that you've missed boarding by, ooh, two minutes and then you'll have to sell a kidney to pay for that Chunnel thing.