I’m Spring Cleaning.
Whaddya mean it’s October??
Back in the Spring I was a bit busy with other things, seeing as my husband had not long since walked away from the marriage. And besides, I had a cleaner back then. I had a lovely lady who came in for two hours a week, and hoovered and dusted the two main floors and cleaned the bathroom. But I couldn’t justify keeping her on when money was tight and I was counting how many slices you get to a loaf of bread.
I needed to start making some money of my own in a hurry, so any cleaning was focussed on getting the attic ready for a lodger.
Anyhoo, here I am, shifting dust like you wouldn’t believe.
I have a system.
I move everything that can be moved out into another room. Then I start at the top – I have a long-handled broom thingy for dusting the ceiling and generally chasing the cobwebs and the spiders away (please please don’t kill the spiders – if you really can’t abide them in the house then escort them off the premises by all means, but don’t kill them). Then I dust the ceiling light, and the picture mouldings. I wash the nets and clean the windows. Empty the cupboards and clean the insides, pull them out from the wall and hoover/dust behind them, then put things back. Finally I hoover and/or mop the floor and dust the skirting boards and the fiddly bits of the radiators that you can never quite reach.
It’s good for the soul.
I’ve really just got one room left to do now – the room that used to be the spare room but which I now use as an office. My husband took the furniture from this room when he left, so it feels quite a strange place. My office only takes up one corner of it and I’ve moved some of the furniture from my bedroom in there (‘his’ wardrobe, ‘his’ chest of drawers, ‘his’ bedside table). It’s become a bit of a dumping ground – so I need to decide where things are going to actually live now.
But conspicuous by its absence is a bed.
So I’ve decided to get a bed – I feel able to start having visitors again. My parents have pointed out that it’s more than a year since they were last invited to visit. Well, yes – I’ve been a bit busy, what with one thing and another.
To be fair, so much stuff has been dumped in that room that I don’t actually have space for one at the moment. I need to decide where to keep all the Stuff – my knitting bag, my sewing machine, my ever growing ebay pile, the audited accounts for the business going back to 2011, the wrapping paper – it’s all got to go somewhere. Selling the ebay stuff would be a start.
Once that room’s properly sorted, I’ll feel that the whole house is sorted – that I’ve regained control of the whole space, that it’s all mine. And it’s all clean!!
And I’ll be able to have visitors again, which will be lovely. Come one, come all!!
I’ve had a flurry of new followers over the last few days – welcome!! It’s lovely to have you here in this corner of the internet. My husband walked away from our marriage back in February – this blog is my quest to find out what the hell happens next.
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