It's not the day job that I resent. The day job, I like just fine. It's well-paid and rewarding and it gets me home in time to have enough time to spend serious time writing. It's the other things I resent - the must-do menial tasks that eat into writing time, keeping me away from my desk and tied to the vacuum cleaner. It's the Crap Tasks that cannot be left undone - paying National Insurance contributions, paying cheques into the bank, doing the weekly shop, hanging the washing out (my personal least-favourite bete noir). 

 So, what I've decided is, is that I need a writer's help. It won't be a fulfilling job, but I'm sure young writers would be queueing up to gain experience of literary greatness by doing my laundry. Let's face it, who wouldn't want to work for a bad-tempered eccentric who has fussy eating habits, is untidy and smelly, and who snaps every time she's disturbed at work? I'm sure I'd be deluged with applications. 

The ad would probably read like this:

WANTED: Writer's Help.

Writer seeks personal assistant to undertake all the dreary, undesirable tasks of life. You will be smart, have initiative, and be a great cook. You will not be the sort of person who ever runs jumpers through the tumble drier, making them shrink just enough so that their owner can still get them on, but can't wear them outside the house because they are that embarrassingly just slightly too small size that says, "I'm 30 years old and I don't know how to work a washing machine". 

Tasks will include: making breakfast, making lunch, making dinner, bringing lots of cups of tea silently and efficiently so as not to break anyone's concentration, going to the post office, putting washing in, taking washing out, cleaning the kitchen, returning library books, buying tights, doing the weekly shop, going to the corner shop after you've done the weekly shop to get anything you've forgotten, running upstairs to fetch things that I need in the living room, and taking the rubbish out. 

Applicants of any age or background welcome, pay negotiable.....