Fenella Souter - How to Fake Being Tidy: And other things my mother never taught me

On every page I was amused, uplifted and moved by the possibility for grace and serenity hiding in the smallest domestic moment. Chuck out all your self-help guides to gratitude, mindfulness and finding meaning. This book is all you need.

Charlotte Wood, award-winning author of The Weekend and The Natural Way of Things

Every failed domestic goddess will rock with laughter.

Shona Martyn, Spectrum editor, Sydney Morning Herald

Sweet, wise, and very funny, with genuinely useful household advice for the most half-arsed pickle-forkers and wisteria-murderers among us.

Danny Katz, author and columnist

A glorious account of how the little things of life are, of course, the big things.

Richard Glover, radio presenter and author of Love, Clancy

Fenella Souter is an award-winning feature writer whose work has appeared in magazines and newspapers over many years. She is a former longtime editor of Good Weekend, in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and, more recently, has also worked as a radio producer, co-producing several documentary series for ABC Radio. Her domestic alter-ego has appeared in columns under the pen-name of Dusty Miller. She lives in Sydney with her partner.

First published in 2021

Copyright 2021 Fenella Souter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

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ISBN 978 1 76087 844 3

eISBN 978 1 76106 128 8

Illustrations by Georgia Draws A House

Internal design by Bookhouse, Sydney

Set by Bookhouse, Sydney

Cover design: Christabella Designs

Cover illustrations: Georgia Draws A House

For Will and Dylan

It requires skill, time, dedication and empathy to create a home that everyone enjoys and that functions well. Above all else, it is an act of immense generosity to be the architect of everyone elses well-being. This task is still mostly perceived as womens work. Consequently, there are all kinds of words used to belittle this huge endeavour.

DEBORAH LEVY, THE COST OF LIVING: A WORKING AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them.

NORA EPHRON, HEARTBURN

I was famous as a child for being homesick. At some point in a sleepover thered be a teary phone call to my parents, asking them to come and collect my small, miserable and pyjama-clad self from whichever friends place Id begged to stay at. Some minor difference in the way things were done would have made me think of home and long for my own bed and my own family. Then again, I was also known for being homesick when I was away from home with my own family. I was the only one who ever wanted to come back from holidays by about the second day. It was as if the house itself was a friend Id left behind and now desperately needed to see again.

In a way it was an old friend, in that it was dear to me and spoke to me in its own language. Houses are like that, if you live in them for long enough. You get to know their every creak and whisper, every nook and cranny, every drawer, every smell, every idiosyncratic door handle or temperamental tap. With that house, I can still remember the canned-goods gloom of the walk-through pantry wedged between kitchen and laundry; the breezy smell of the airing cupboard; the big round coins mysteriously hidden in the hems of the curtains to weigh them down; the swooshing sound of the griller being dragged out in a panic as someone remembered, too late, the lamb chops. Houses have their own personality, their own routines, and I would miss my childhood home when I was away. Let me just add that it wouldnt have been the excellent housekeeping or the superb meals that made me yearn to get home. My mother had many talents but running a house like a well-oiled machine wasnt one of them. She wasnt much of a cook either (see lamb chops above), although she tried. She went through the motions, because she had to, but she didnt love it or have a gift for it. Shed grown up in a hidebound, lower middle-class household and longed to lead a more unconventional, sophisticated life with her much older husband, my dad, an artist. Caring about housekeeping wasnt on the agenda. Admirably high-minded, but it meant I never learnt how to fold a towel. It goes some way to explaining why Im not very good at some aspects of keeping house, even though Im a homebody. It doesnt explain, however, why Id like to be good at keeping house.

I do know I always loved those handy hints columns that ran in newspapers. It was touching, the generosity and eagerness with which the women offered up their tips to other readers (they still do, except now they do it online). The suggestion seemed to be that if you could just get on top of ink stains or a curdling hollandaise, the larger world would be manageable.

The whole business of running a house smoothly strikes me as quite complicated, really. Its a skill, without doubt. A series of skills; science as well as art. Its essentially an exercise in keeping chaos at bay, day after day. Theres a reason they call it household management. Some people seem to have a gift for it, which is why I admire people like my friend Jane who, as well as being clever and a brilliant writer, is a superb housekeeper who never runs out of things at the wrong moment, always has well-made beds, and even manages a garnish on her guests poached eggs. And who knew you could use a vacuum cleaner to clean the crumbs out of kitchen drawers?

Its easy to dismiss the domestic as trivial. It is seenstillas mostly a female domain, and thus devalued and belittled. Much of it is drudgery, of course, especially when you have young children. Exhausting, never-ending, underappreciated, unpaid, despite the breadth of the task. Feminism has, quite rightly, questioned the fairness of that load and the domestic bondage that has so often limited womens lives.

Then again, the domestic arts and all the small events and challenges that make up home life are also a source of pleasure for many of us. The house, the home, after all, is where our hearts lie, no matter how much we value our professional careers or care about what goes on in the UN or Uzbekistan. Its a place of stories and memories, the place where we can be ourselves. It can also be a place of solace.

Like most of us, Ive had difficult times in my life, including the death of my mother when I was a teenager; some miserable years in an early first marriage with a man I loved but who was in the grip of addiction; the pain of having a child diagnosed with a mental illness. The small, distracting tasks of home have helped me weather those storms of trouble or despair. The healing power of domestic therapy. Theres nothing like making jam or organising the linen cupboard or working in the garden to take your mind off your sorry state. You cant cook