I like ironing. When we speak about housework, I usually say Tom does everything except the ironing. That’s my domain. Oh, and maybe the bathrooms. And the fridge.

I remember being taught how to iron, with the privilege as a primary-school-aged youngster of being allowed to iron the handkerchiefs. Admonished for not getting them quite precisely square at times. Indeed, I wasn’t allowed to actually iron Margaret’s, as I didn’t align the edges quite enough. Moved on to tea towels (does anyone iron these anymore?) and aprons (does anyone use these anymore?). Eventually graduated to more complex items of clothing.

In high school summer holidays I remember happily doing the ironing while watching the test cricket. A favourite pastime even now. Satisfaction of completing a chore coupled with enjoyment of spending hours watching sport. What could be better?

This week, having tested positive for COVID, I spent a few days just relaxing and recovering. I had only mild symptoms, similar to a few of my friends, which just felt like a bad head cold with some aches. Nothing too severe, but energy-sapping enough to just take the time to rest. As my friends checked in to see how I was progressing, my usual reply was “Relaxing, taking it easy, still feeling a bit fluey. Not enough energy to do the ironing!”

Maybe it’s an energy rating level. Am I up to doing the ironing? No, not today. I can only imagine how debilitating it would be to have this energy level consistently. You know you’d like to do something, but there really is no energy to do it. Physically, you don’t look like you couldn’t do the task. My heart goes out to my friends who have chronic conditions where this is their everyday – MD, MND, Lupus, Hashimoto’s, just to name a few.

With a bit more energy, yesterday felt like quite a busy day. When the “COVID cops” (not actual police, but working with them to spot check if those in COVID isolation are where they should be) called by, I was up, dressed and ready to wave from the driveway. Shortly after, our online shopping order arrived and we could restock the fridge. Tom made sure all our rubbish was out for the hard-rubbish collection we had organised for today (organised pre-COVID test, and mentioned in the post Possessions). I even managed a little ironing yesterday, but only a few items. It was soon back to the couch so as not to over-do it on one day.

How do I feel today? COVID symptoms continuing to improve, a bit more energy. Did some jigsaw. Read a little. You know, I think I’ll do some more ironing. Time to tackle that pile which has been accumulating over a couple of weeks. Start the first item, and what’s this? The iron’s not hot. Check the plug. Nope, all in OK. Check another power point. Nope, nothing happening there either.

Bother, just when I had gathered enough energy, the iron, bought just a couple of months ago, decided not to work. What about the old iron, you may ask. Ah, well, you know that hard-rubbish collection just yesterday? The old iron went in that. By the way, the main reason we decided to have a hard rubbish collection was to get rid of the old broken ironing board which had been welded up previously. And what item did they not take? The ironing board. Oh, the irony.