My house looks like the aftermath of a clutter bomb. Edmund's stuff from Afghanistan is still not entirely stowed and we now have computer boxes all over the study floor, the result of buying a laptop and a printer. There are clothes lying in heaps all over the place -- Edmund came home from Afghanistan as slim and fit as a young subaltern so all his jeans are too big; also, I never seem to find the time to put away all the laundry or go to the dry cleaner.

On top of all that is the Christmas clutter -- gifts, packing materials, wrapping. Yikes! No tree this year, because we're not hosting Christmas dinner and we're going away for New Year, but plenty of mess and ruckus without it.

I've said it for years, and I'm still convinced what we need is a wife.