I immediately shared the good news with the man on the stoep of our new house at the coast. ‘I think that with all the packing and cleaning and painting involved in our move from the mountain farm to the sea, I have now reached my full potential for being super clever,’ I announced. ‘How so?’ he asked, gazing out over the ocean with the distraction of a man reluctant to instantly acknowledge that his partner is highly gifted.
I had been working on my studies towards being an educational kinesiologist and spelling therapist so I can launch into a new career here at the coast. One study's conclusion, that doing household tasks and your own repairs and maintenance stimulates your brain, is actually logical when you look at brain stimulation exercises, but the fact that researchers from the Baycrest Centre's Rotman Research Insitute in Canada had committed this to paper pleased me enormously.
Since the pandemic I have been doing my own cleaning. In fact, lots of people realised during the lockdown that they could do it themselves and now also do their own maintenance where possible. (My only stipulation is that I am rewarded in the evening with a pink G&T out on the deck. No gin, no work, and that man on the stoep knows it!)
