And what do you do?

I'm reading a novel with that title, and it was particularly relevant last week as I attended a works do with Husband. Being a 'wife of' is something I'm used to, and throughout Husband's career has simply been part of military life: lots of military wives don't have paid work. We spend alot of time moving house and needing to establish the family wherever we end up. Some people manage it, but they seem to take manual type jobs, or they do something everyone needs: teachers, doctors, nurses.. the sort of thing that can be relatively easily transferred - 'though I still think they must be tremendously organised to get their families up and running AND work. But last night, because of the current job, there were lots of civilians, and they generally seem to lead much more settled lives, and not working is distinctly odd...

It's not that I don't do any work! We have a house, garden and alotment to maintain. I am not particularly house proud, but I do try to keep on top of the worst of the family's mess and to do minor repairs or organise to get a man in when neccessary. The alotments is Husband's project really, but produce doesn't know he can only do weekends, so when things are growing they need regular picking too, and that means me. Gardening is one of my favorite activities, but it is a guilty pleasure in that I have always preferred it to housework. Our two children get themselves to school and back on a bus, but they both have a number of after school clubs and commitments that require a taxi service 4 nights a week. Clearly it is my job to keep everyone in clean and mended clothes, and to know where everything they lose is. In my spare time I'm a school governor and I've been Chair for 2 years. I am on call throughout the week for the Headteacher, or anyone else with a school issue. I wonder how the world will continue to run when all the people who volunteer for things have proper jobs instead?


And I'm giving that one up: I've collected too many t-shirts and am getting more and more annoyed by the ammount of work the goverment thinks it can put in the way of schools. But I'm not going to ruin my mood by going there! I was just wondering what I'll say now to provide a suitable answer to the dreaded question...