This week I’ve had a bit of dilemma. We’ve been working overly long hours and as a result the house has started to resemble the set from ‘Shameless’. I mean it’s so bad that I’m constantly on edge in case someone makes an impromptu visit. We’ve been debating this subject for a good few months, more heatedly on occasions when, armed with Mr Muscle Multi Purpose spray and a barrow load of J cloths, we have to negotiate our way from one room to the next, striding over the debris of our lazy domestic lives and the odd cat poo.
Last week the subject came up again and as a result we now have a cleaner. You’d think I’d be overjoyed about this but I’ve spent half of the week feeling guilty and the other half ‘pre-cleaning’. Well, I couldn’t let anyone see it in it’s current state, least of all a cleaner who will have a front row seat to all our slovenly habits.
And the guilt? My grandmother was a war widow, with four children and a full time job. Despite this her house was always spotless and she even polished her front step. My mother raised two children alone, had a full time job, an evening job and our house was always clean, tidy and full of visitors. How on earth did they do it?
So tonight after a week of late nights, guilt and early morning pre-cleaning we will be kicking back with a take-away from the New Himalaya. Well, there’s no way I’m cooking. The cleaner came today and the kitchen is absolutely spotless.
The reason Granny always got the house clean as well as having 4 kids and a job – was because she probably didn’t have a telly, no email and no Facebook
Hello David. True, there were certainly less technological distractions. She did have a telly though. I often wonder what she would have made of the internet. She was a comptometer operator.
I’ve been talking to a few people about this phenomenon lately, and it seems like even just over the past year people feel like they have less free time than they did. I wonder where it will all end.
[...] the memo on this one. Or perhaps more likely I’ve been shunned from the sisterhood for my slovenly cleaning practices and total lack of interest in shopping. The clothes were pretty [...]