Spring Fever...........

Spring fever is most definitely in the air.

Not only is small dog acting like a complete maniac, but this weekend I have taken a turavee* (as my granny would have said) and started spring cleaning the house.

PP and I subscribe to two very different styles of cleaning.

I go at top speed, multitasking furiously, sweeping, washing, dusting, hoovering, tidying.....all in a whirlwind frenzy until I run out steam. In this manner I can clean and tidy pretty much the whole house in a few hours.

PP takes things at a slower pace, and cleans a very small area but cleans it FORENSICALLY clean. I mean Kim and Aggie are clarty* mares compared to PP when it comes to cleaning.

So ideally, I should form the advance guard, sweeping through the house like the white tornado (remember that?) scattering dust and debris in my wake. PP should then follow at the rear, tackling areas which need to be microscopically sparkling and germ free.

However there is one area of the house which valiantly resists any efforts to sort it out. One of the spare rooms has become a repository for 'stuff' which has to be hurriedly cleared out of the way when we have people to stay. It's not a big room, but it is currently stacked, floor to ceiling with extraneous 'stuff'.

I keep threatening to get in there and sort it out, but by the time I've plucked up the courage after a cleaning spree, my energy levels are at rock bottom and the mere act of opening door and gazing forlornly inside is enough to sap my will to live.

There are boxes and boxes of books, piles of clothes which are too small/too big/too bright/too good to dispose of, the whole of our 2008/2009 accounts stuffed into various envelopes and carrier bags and which I will have to wade through next month in order to do our tax returns, a translucent woman's torso which I got off Freecycle with the idea of doing something clever with fairy lights and a leather corset to make a piece of 'installation art' to go at the top of the stairs but never got round to, piles of picture frames with assorted prints to frame, several cases of wine which we brought back from France and bottled ourselves ages ago, one deceased laptop awaiting formatting, a huge pile of soft toys which Gorgeous Daughter won't let me throw out despite the fact she turned 27 last Friday and is nominally an adult, one step ladder so we can relatively easily get up into the loft to monitor the leak in the roof, overflow camping stuff from the van including a really kitsch fringed beach umbrella which seemed like a good idea at the time.........there's loads more but you get the drift.

If we had a garage, no doubt most of it would be piled ceiling high in there, instead of taking up a whole room in the house. It's one of the immutable laws of the universe that stuff stored in a garage ceases to exist in this dimension, but sadly we don't have that luxury. So it will have to be sorted through and 'dealt with'. Since most of it has been in there for over two years, untouched, it's a fair bet we don't actually NEED any of it, and what can't be sold could be distributed via charity shops and/or Freecycle.

All I need is the time and energy to get stuck in and clear out the guddle*

Anyways, a quick google has revealed the following advertising gem.......we used to think this was the height of cleaning sophistication in our household when I was young....



*Apologies for slipping into Scottish vernacular. However HERE is a very useful glossary which provided me with the displacement activity equivalent of a trip down memory lane.

Happy days