Alex is good at many things.

Cooking is not one of them.

But keeping you entertained is a fulltime job ... actually writing the news is a fulltime job and I squeeze this in when I get a chance – so I often arrive home hours after what Carol Brady would call acceptable dinner time.

So if Alex wants to eat, he has to cook.

Nothing wrong with that.

Except he can’t.

If the meal doesn’t have spaghetti bolognaise in the title, chances are it is going to be a lot more miss than hit.

This makes the 1950's housewife who lives inside of me, very nervous.

Because Ethel can cook.

She loves nothing better than tying on the apron, getting out the mix-master and creating culinary magic.

Or at the very least a quite edible stir-fry.

But that is because Ethel knows when to stop.

Alex on the other hand, loves to experiment.

Which is why it is not surprising to find the occasional tin of baked beans mixed through the spaghetti bolognaise.

Or every single herb shaker we have in the cupboard open and spread around whatever is bubbling away on the stove.

And this greatly upsets Ethel because she knows Alex is more than capable of looking after himself and therefore she should not interfere, but seriously.

Have you had to eat ham mixed with tomato sauce (the stuff in a squeezy bottle, not the bolognaise stuff) cooked in a pot with rosemary, ginger and something that may have one point have been cumin dumped on spaghetti?

No?

Then you don’t understand.

Because I’ll come home to the remnants of the aforementioned meal or something equally scary and see his slightly bashful face and then feel terribly guilty that I wasn’t there to rescue his stomach from his latest creation.

And then I feel angry at myself for feeling guilty because I know that I have to work hard now to contribute to what we want our life to be.

And then I’ll feel both angry and guilty and remorseful for feeling angry and try and salvage some sort of meal from what is left over in the fridge so even if I’m late home the next night, Alex will have something decent to eat.

And then I’ll get home the next night to find he has eaten it all, so I’ll be stuck with rice crackers.

And then the next night I will demand we go grocery shopping because I am sick of rice crackers – stocking the fridge with a whole heap of new ingredients for Alex to play “guess what this used to be” in the following night’s dinner.

I tell you – the evening meal was never meant to be so emotionally fraught with danger!

I don’t think I should have to spend my days off preparing meals for the rest of the week because I married a man who thinks more is better when it comes to mixing up a dish.

So our latest solution has been meat – and lots of it.

Because if there is one thing Alex does know how to cook it is meat. As long as by cook you mean fry. Or as long as you don’t mind buying new baking pans every couple of months because the man doesn’t know where the alfoil or baking paper is kept, you might find he has mixed it up a little with a roast.

Which means I have eaten a lot of roasted vegetables in the past couple of weeks, because I can not handle seven days of being a carnivore.

Maybe spending my day off cooking isn’t such a bad idea after all.