The many and various ways I pass the time now has a new addition. Usually it involves drinking coffee whilst sitting at a computer keeping in touch with chums, or sipping wine sitting on our tiny terrace catching the sun, and wondering what else I can do to avoid any cleaning or tidying or putting away of stuff and things that aren't even MINE. And now I am going to type this blog. Provided that doesn't become a chore as well, in which case...


Friday 19 August 2011

Progress Report

This by way of an addendum to Wednesdays  It's going to take the form of Bridget Jones Type Diary Entry for Thursday.  Pounds Lost - Nil.  Units of Alcohol - Lots (half-price champagne night at our favourite local watering hole).  Rooms Cleaned - Half.

I tackled our sleeping quarters this morning, on the grounds that the first thing that meets my eye upon awakening may well set the mood for the day.  So I did the half of the room nearest the head of the bed.  I had meant to get further, but three hours of clearing, tidying, discarding, rubbing and scrubbing and vacuuming seemed enough. The other half will still be there tomorrow. 

Our matrimonial nest is flanked by bedside drawers with alcoves of glass shelves above, which have lights therein, left by the last incumbents and never taken out.  On my side I display personal effects such as cut glass pin dishes and scent bottles, photos of the nearest and dearest (The Husband, The Daughter and The Departed Parents), an alarm clock, a small cabinet of drawers where I put hair ornaments, bracelets, earrings and the like.  And on his side The Husband likes to display old till receipts, elastic bands, blunt pencils, spent matches, dead batteries and random bolts and screws, small change out of his trouser pockets, watches (some of which go and have straps and some of which don't) photos of me and The Daughter which I decided he should treasure and have near him, a pair of hair brushes that were his father's, mouth organs of various sizes down to miniature which weighs in at 1" long (I have no idea why he even owns these) and some personal grooming products I have bought for him at Christmas which he never uses.  The grooming products he uses are in the bathroom (cf yesterday).

Glass shelves attract a lot of dust.  They suck every particle of it out of the air and clasp it to them like a long-lost loved one they've been reunited with by surprise on a daytime TV show.  If the glass shelves have lots of little fiddly bits and bobs on them they are rarely dusted often enough to keep pace with their magnetic attraction to airborne molecular detritus.  I guess a conscientious housewife would take the whole lot off and dust properly every week.  Even a semi-slatternly trollop would lift some things to scoot under them with a cloth and skim around the others once every month or so.  And then there is me.  I groan inwardly about annually, when I can procrastinate no longer, and give it a good doing over, promising myself I won't leave it nearly so long next time.


It looks lovely when it's done.  Catch it now while it lasts! 

2 comments:

  1. I appreciate that you posted this blog a while back, but looking at your picture of your bedroom may I ask if your bedding is from John Lewis? It looks mighty like ours, very fine blue and white striped cotton on one side, plain white cotton on the other. The edges of the pillowslips and duvet are white.
    We have paired them with navy blue bottom sheet and valance.

    Your husband's side sounds rather like my DH's. I regret to say that my side is stacked up with inhalers, spacers, puffers, tissues but also a radio clock that is therefore never wrong.

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  2. Yes PixieMum, it ia! John Lewis via Oxfam. We have a very snart set of charity shops in the seething Berkopolis (aka Berkhamsted) and ladies with more lolly than me offload some fabulous stuff into them. We too have a dark blue valance.

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