Well, the new kitchen is now finished and very smart and clean it looks too, although knowing us I guess it won't stay like that for very long.

The builders have now moved on to the bathroom and windows so we are still living in a bit of a muddle but the kitchen is in use.

Currently I am still at the stage of wiping the worktops down every ten minutes and shouting at anyone who leaves a used cup on the table.

There is no excuse for this really, leaving dirty cups around I mean, not no excuse for nagging because I can always find one for that.

There's no excuse for leaving dirty cups around because our new kitchen has a dishwasher, a real dishwasher - not the old one we had which was also called Mum.

Mind you, I have never minded washing up and have always said I couldn't see the point of dishwashers, believing them to be an unnecessary luxury.

This was, of course, before I had experienced having one. It's absolutely great.

You just load it up through the day with all the stuff you use, then switch it on when you go to bed, then wake up to clean and sparkly washing up all done in the morning. Brilliant.

I now cannot live without my dishwasher. In fact, I think I love it.

The other thing is that, like barbecues and CD sound systems, dishwashers seem to come in that category of things that boys and men are allowed to use and really should be in charge of.

It must be because it's a machine and makes a noise and has buttons to press which make lights go on and off.

This obviously confers a serious level of boy's toy status to it.

Him indoors happily loads it up and switches it on.

A friend has warned me that I have yet to endure the male "How to load a dishwasher properly, which only men can do" conversation which will happen next time we invite another couple to dinner.

Doubtless the other woman and I can discuss something trivial like world politics or the state of the health care system while the men sort out which shelf the side plates should go on and whether glassware should be placed adjacent to saucepans or not.

Not having to wash up last night's dinner dishes gives me more time to get ready for work at the hospital in the mornings. This means I get to work on time which is good for patients.

I met a lovely lady the other day who, at 85, was smartly dressed in green with matching hat and coloured plaster casts on her broken arm and leg.

She told me that she had broken her leg and arm in a car crash when she had inadvertently driven her car into a wall and written it off, the car that is, not the wall.

Ironically the wall in question surrounded the house of one of our senior orthopaedic doctors.

Now that's what I call doing it in style.

She is exactly the sort of old lady I aspire to be when I am 85.

I doubt she has spent more than a minute out of her whole life worrying about the washing up, because she has probably had better things to do with her time.