Cleanliness is next to... impossible
Back in my other life I used to have cleaners. A lovely elderly couple would visit my house once a week for two hours and conduct a sweep of the place with a hoover, duster and bottle of bleach. I miss them. I miss them as much as I miss a boyfriend sometimes.
I am never going to be one of those people who love housework. Monica from Friends has to be some kind of alien as far as I am concerned. There are so many better things I could be doing with my time rather than trying to hoick a 100lb hoover up the stairs (why can’t they make a light one which can also cope with deeply encrusted pet hair?) or dusting around the ridiculous number of nick-knacks I have collected under the guise of ‘shabby-chic’ décor.
It pains me that I no longer own a dishwasher. I don’t cook myself elaborate meals, yet I still seem to have a never ending pile of washing up to do. I don’t understand how people with normal jobs keep up with all this stuff… Genuinely.
I just about maintain an equilibrium which consists mainly of washing up once or twice a day and then running around like a loon on with the hoover and a duster for about an hour before someone is due to visit. This is normal, right? I reason that it’s healthy to live amongst a certain level of germs and mess. I’m building up my immune system.
It’s difficult to understand how I got to be like this. My mother, and grandmother, are extremely house-proud. They are the sort of people who have cleaners, but hoover and polish before they arrive to ensure the house “looks respectable enough to clean.”
Every time my mother is due to visit me, the frenzied cleaning session lasts a day rather than an hour. And I still know I’m doomed to disappoint. She doesn’t run her finger over the mantelpiece or anything, but her eyes say it all… I’ll never stop feeling like my mother is judging my inadequate homemaking skills.
In fact, apparently my incapability in this regard is even divorce-worthy. In the page of reasons listed by my ex husband which render me impossible to live with, he mentioned both my apparent allergy to housework and my propensity for leaving clothes hung over the footboard at the end of the bed. Honest. Clearly we were never well suited.
Now one of the few privileges of being single is the joy I take in being able to fling my clothes over the end of the bed in wild abandon. I’m not a slob. Really I’m not. I am a little house-proud. Just don’t look too closely at the mantelpiece. And if anyone happens to know of a Monica-type who would relish the opportunity of wiping down my skirting boards for free, and who also happens to live within travelling distance of Bath, UK, then please pass on my details. I appreciate it’s a long shot.