27th September 2008

Last night my darling husband had a call from his brother. Him and his wife and their darling daughter were coming to visit, this evening.

Oh holy crap.

The house as ever looked, well let’s just say as it normally does. Now, if this was someone normal coming to visit I wouldn’t have been in such a panic. But my sister-in-law is not a normal person, she is Bury St. Edmunds answer to Anthea Turner. When visiting this woman’s house I never want to touch anything, anything I’m wearing feels dirty, I feel like I should bleach from head to toe before stepping through the door. She polishes the tops of her doorways. Who does that?? Anyway you’re getting the idea.

The thought of her arriving here, to see the leaning tower of paperwork, the grubby handprints at 3ft high around most of the doors, the un-hoovered carpet, the monstrous pile of washing taking over my landing, or the collection of cardboard toilet roll tubes collecting next to the toilet made me feel sick.

There was only one answer. I had to clean and tidy.

I was aided by daylight saving time, which gave me an extra hour, and Nickelodeon Junior, which kept the kids amused all day. I was the epitome of the term ‘whirling dervish’. I sorted, tidied, dusted, folded, scrubbed, polished, hoovered, swept and mopped. It took me 9 hours. I cleaned everything, doors, banisters, light switches and even plugs. I went through 2 packets of baby wipes (the greatest cleaning tool). By the time they got here at 6.15 the house sparkled. My husband was delighted and beaming when he saw it.

So they came, they drank tea, they picked up what they came for and they left. Afterwards I sat on the sofa and thought, I do actually like it being clean and tidy. I feel a sense of accomplishment. And now that it’s done I should be able to maintain it. Well that’s the theory anyway!

And at some stage I’ll do my bedroom, well they weren’t going to go in there were they!