In our home we have always had pink and blue jobs. Anything involving a plug or engine generally falls into a blue job (Lee’s domain) and as Lee so rudely puts it, soft furnishings and haberdashery are pink jobs. He fails to notice that working, gardening, shopping, cleaning, looking after the dog, making the appointments, organising Christmas, family events and sending cards do not have in any way, shape or form have cushions attached to them.

Occasionally we stray into each others territories. Very quickly after we move back into our own. An example; one day Lee had to mow the lawn. 2 hours later he comes to the bedroom where I am in bed immobile, off my face on medication due to my back and from which I had been shouting unanswered requests for tea, pity, hot water bottles and the dog who was ignoring me to be brought to my sickbed. He said he had needed to buy a new lawn mower. This confused me. The lawnmower and me had been firm friends for many years and it had not once let me down. Apparently it was broken. It was spitting grass out the back. I since found out he had not attached the clippings collector on the back so had bought a new one. I have done the gardening since then.

On boats the blue and pink jobs continue. When we are on the boat I do the victualling (getting the shopping in) and stow it away (hide it in cupboards never to be seen again unless in a gale when it suddenly makes a dramatic appearance winging it’s way across the lounge or saloons as they are called when of the floating variety). I also manage the lines and tie the boat up. Lee does the blue jobs; engine checks, sorts out the every increasing array of gadgets we have, navigates ( I can also do this to be fair but not to his standard) and parks the boat.

Occasionally, in a fit of stupidity we decide we need to learn each others jobs. It makes perfect sense on paper. Of course I need to know how to park the boat. Of course he knows how to manage the lines and tie us up. And so we swap.

When we first started sailing we had been having an ongoing matrimonial discussion for some time about the speed with which Lee was coming into berths. On land this would be something akin to Lee driving a car at speed towards a brick wall and hoping that my jumping out of the door and standing in front of the car with my body splayed against the bonnet will stop it from crashing. He kept telling me the boat was in neutral. He figured this meant we had no speed and all should be well. I should be able to leap from the boat like a gazelle, with the quick flip of the wrist tie on 4 lines simultaneously thus stopping the boat in her tracks. He, meanwhile would stand behind the wheel and smile smugly at others watching this sport at how well he had moored the boat up.

One day I said we would swap. He would do the lines and I would take us into the mooring. It only took the once. Lee is very good at many things but apparently simultaneously tying on 4 lines from a plastic boat travelling at speed heading towards a block of concrete does not appear to be one of them. We ended up nicely squished against the other boat with Lee frantically pulling on a rope like some sort of World’s Strongest Man competitor trying to pull across 15 tonnes of boat against wind and tide. I meanwhile stood behind the wheel and calmly said, “but we were in neutral dear”. And that solved that problem.

I normally pick up the buoys. Lee drives onto them. We had the same conversation about speed again, and despite us swooping down on the buoys as fast as a nurse on cake ( I am a fat nurse, I am allowed to write this) we were always apparently in neutral. We decided to swap. Now picking up buoys, like mooring and anchoring is a public sport that everyone in close quarters is obliged to watch, and sometimes for those further afield may involve the laborious trek down below to get the binoculars to have a better look. The first time this happened we nearly had a man overboard situation with Lee dangling off the side of the boat like a spider monkey while trying to chase the fast disappearing buoy down the side of the boat. I smugly told him we were in neutral. The second time apparently the buoy was broken. We swapped back and picked it up perfectly.

The list goes on but I won’t bore you with all of them at once. Perhaps later. I will regale you though with one last. The Supernoodle Sandwich. After a particularly long and unpleasant passage my back had gone into spasm and after mooring up I was having a quick Lima Lima Delta (navy speak for little lie down) and Lee was in charge of dinner (as mentioned before, normally a pink job). 30 minutes later he proudly bore the fruits of his labour. A baguette with all the good, squidgy bread bit missing with chicken supernoodles in the middle with a sprinkling of sweetcorn on top of it. Apparently he had read the instructions and had followed the serving suggestion of adding sweetcorn. To be fair I was pretty chuffed he had made this, as he normally only makes scrambled eggs. When able to stand again I went into the galley to find while in bed we had been burgled. Pots and pans were everywhere, food was lying all over the counters and the floor and there was a sink full of dishes. I now have a shelf with tins of ready to reheat meals in them which is labelled easily for Lee to find in extremis.

So I guess for us pink and blue jobs will continue for a while longer. But who knows. Never say never. We may even make up purple ones.