It started with a game of tennis with my son and his friend. Despite the beautiful autumn morning, I kept telling myself that an hour or so later I’d be home again, with the rest of the day at my disposal to make our flat a clean, tidy and welcoming place.
My chores began with the breakfast dishes. For this I used Tesco’s own brand lemon-scented washing up liquid, which, as promised, left our crockery sparkling clean. Following this, I scrubbed the hob surface with a green brillo pad. Then I tidied away the gubbins from the top of our hall chest of drawers - you know what I mean, the miscellany of unrelated objects which you pick up from time to time and replace because they have no obvious home but you can't bring yourself to throw out.
While our Vaporetto 2400 steam cleaner was heating up, I ironed three school shirts and a pair of trousers. Then I leaped into sprightly action in the bathroom, disposing of splayed toothbrushes, empty toothpaste tubes and little bits of loo paper littering the floor. I steam cleaned the bath before removing final traces of grease with Tesco Bathroom cleaner. The loo was whooshed and scooshed with the steam cleaner, the wash hand basin steamed, and the shelf which stores our shampoo bottles and bathing products wiped with a j-cloth. Finally I mopped the floor with Duck 3 in 1.
Suddenly, without warning, the spell broke and the original me reappeared, rushing off to the gym for a swim, ordering an Indian takeaway and DVD, resigned to the fact that although I’d love our flat to be an example of housewifely perfection, I’m too mean and ashamed to pay someone else to do that, and too lazy to do it myself. I should add that the man of the house does his bit, especially things never on my radar, such as unblocking drains and cleaning the oven, but is oblivious to dust and unsightly piles of 'stuff'.
I once had a colleague who worked part-time. At lunch time, she’d announce, ‘I’m going home to do my ironing and clean the windows,’ in a beatific tone. Her mention of cleaning products meant nothing to me. She could have been talking about rare chemicals for all I understood. The sad reality is I’m still like that.
Insightfully yours
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment