Monday 24 May 2010

Spring cleaning

I have just found an understanding and empathy with the whole concept of spring cleaning. Chris had just strimmed the lawn, while I was getting the girls ready for bed and before reading Rosemary her bedtime stories. The kitchen window was open, with the heat floating into the room, bringing with it that loveliest of aromas – freshly cut grass. The kettle was boiling.

And I had a sudden urge to pick up the broom and sweep the floor. I swept the kitchen floor and the dining room floor and what I really wanted to do was continue sweeping through the house. Sweeping away the dust and the dog hairs, the cobwebs, the piles and piles of disorganised junk. I wanted to get a basin of luke warm water and scrub away the stains and the stickiness, wipe away the cup rings and yet more dust. I wanted to get out a duster and polish the windows until they gleamed.

Of course, what I actually did was come upstairs and write about it, instead. So, now you know a little more about me. I can fantasise about cleaning, just not actually do it.

Though, really, I’m here to work. Which seems like all I do these days. Of course, it’s not all I do, but free time is in short supply. There is most certainly no spare hours in the day to go through spring-cleaning the whole house.

Which is a shame, because this weather is really making me yearn for freshness and cleanliness and, well, a lot less stickiness.

 

Do you spring clean? Did you read this and think ‘She swept the kitchen and dining room and had to blog about it? I do that twice a day!’? Do you not have time to hoover, let alone organise and dust the bookshelves? Do you want to come and spring clean (and spring organise) my house for me?

10 comments:

  1. ha ha - excellent post! I am a very tidy person, as is DH, so our house never really gets messy. I never walk between rooms or up and down the stairs without taking something back to its rightful home. I'm not a big cleaner though - I hoover quite a lot (every couple of days) and the kitchen floor is swept after every meal, but my bathrooms probably wouldn't meet Kim and Aggie's expectations...

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  2. Ha! I think we may have been separated at birth! I long for a clean and shiny house, but it doesn't mean I do the cleaning. I reluctantly hoover the whole house at least once a week, and dust once a fortnight. Oh and mop the bathroom / kitchen floors.

    We just have so much stuff it is hard to clean when it is hard to keep it tidy!

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  3. "I can fantasise about cleaning, just not actually do it. "
    ROFLMAO - get out of my head! I have wonderful daydreams about all the cleaning I am going to do and how fantastic the house will look when I've finished! Most of the daydreams nowadays centre around how I will do this once the children are no longer living here - so some 12-13 years down the road!!

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  4. I quite like cleaning but not at much as I like working and earning money so the work takes priority. I am not good at dusting though as I can't manage to do it without having to sort out things and put things away, so by the time I've done that there is no time left to dust. Got huge cobwebs right now that have built up over the last month and the whole house does need a good clean as only been doing bits of cleaning here and there. Was going to do whole house Sunday but weather was too hot to do anything active as cleaning. I dream of a clean, well organised modern house with lots of storage to easily put things away as we go and I intend to design and have one built in a few years time. Unlikely to be able to afford to do this until the kids have left home. I am lucky my clients never see my own house as its nothing like I design for other people and I'd be very embarrassed.

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  5. I have to say I usually get an urge to clean our windows in the early summer - I leave them the rest of the year but suddenly something clicks and I turn into my mother getting all spring cleany about stuff

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  6. I saw one of those terrible fridge magnets that said something along the lines of "On my death bed I won't regret that I didn't do more cleaning," or words to that effect, and I kind of agree!

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  7. Ooo, I didn't know I could give myself credit for THINKING about cleaning. Great!

    I'm not a cleaner either. I do the very bare necessities, and sometimes not even that. Sweeping the kitchen would be a bloggable offence to me as well.

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  8. ha ha that really made me laugh! Not sure about spring cleaning, but am really into de-cluttering at the moment - clear house, clear mind, or something like that.

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  9. I read this book in two nights straight.

    I thought it was excellent and I blubbed twice (always a sign of quality!)

    So now I am knackered, having only had a combined 8 hours sleep in two nights.

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  10. Love this post! (And 'sweeping the kitchen is a bloggable offence' is just inspired.) I can really relate. If only my house was as clean and tidy in reality as it is in my perfect vision. Oh well - apparently Buddhists believe that it's the intention that counts, so that's something.

    Nice to find so many kindred spirits!

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