Shropshire Magazine

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Vanessa nudges hubby away from the ironing pile towards something more . . . improving

Here’s a confession - I think I am possibly the only person in the county who isn’t currently embarking on an autumnal path of self-improvement, courtesy of evening classes.

The realisation dawned during a Sunday morning conversation with my husband about, of all things, men’s shirts.

He was over the moon to discover that a new non-iron shirt he had bought did not need ironing. Apparently it was the first one he had ever bought that did just what it said on the packaging. No ironing necessary. Not even a quick once over. It was a department store find. A miracle of modern living.

Now I don’t generally like to rain on his parade, but it did seem prudent to point out that if his life had reached a point where he could wax lyrical about crease-free shirts for five minutes, perhaps it was time he either booked himself into a home, or at least looked for a hobby.

Could evening classes turn Vanessa’s hubby away from pressing matters?

Varied

A quick chat with chums brought forth a short list that rapidly became a long list of all the interesting, varied and downright daft evening courses now on offer within a few miles of home, from watercolour painting, salsa dancing and speaking Polish, to car maintenance, computing and making festive marzipan figures.

One pal’s chap has joined a Welsh language class and is now in his third week learning future tenses, which is proving a bit of a struggle because he missed week two - past tenses - to concrete the garage floor.

She thinks he is doing OK but, as she says, not speaking Welsh she has no way of knowing whether he is talking Cymraeg or double Dutch. She says he could even be having an affair for all she knows, but at least it keeps him out of mischief!

Another single friend has signed up for Conversational Italian, which apparently is the subject to go for if you want to learn alongside good-looking guys. By the same token I suppose Pole Dancing (Improvers) could be the place for single men to look for a hot date, albeit not quite as fit as the girls in Pole Dancing (Advanced).

I’ve only ever attempted two evening classes  - Web Site Design for Beginners was 12 weeks of mind-boggling tedium and, to this day, I really can’t quite fathom how I got from an adult education open evening to ‘computer programming the long-winded and boring way which you could do quicker with a software package’.

However, with evening classes as with gym memberships, once you’ve joined and paid for the course you feel honour bound to be the last man, or woman, standing.

That was until I found myself at a Welsh for Beginners class which rapidly accelerated from the mundane routine of ‘It is raining’ and ‘I live on a hill’ to a full-scale thriller.

From the start the students began dropping like flies. Each week we lost at least a member if not two. Couples split up and vanished proving once and for all that shared interests do not a happy marriage make.

Risk

People left through relocation, illness, death by natural causes, a murder and a suicide. With just four of the original 16 remaining, I decided the odds of making it through to a second term weren’t worth the risk.

So now I’m handing the mantle of self-improvement to my husband. Will he choose Salsa and become a twinkle-toed Anton Du Beke; cookery, and morph into Jamie Oliver; or art, and begin pickling cows à la Damien Hirst? Who knows - but at least it will stop him talking about his shirts!

• PS: Thanks to everyone who enquired about my eldest son Tom’s driving progress after reading about our memorable first ‘lesson’ together. I’m delighted to say he has just passed his test, thanks to the patience and expertise of his instructor Maggie. Watch out for a little red Peugeot!