Last Ritual

“Do you think she’s the kind of person who’ll leave her kitchen cupboards dirty?”

That’s the dreaded house-moving question.

Where I live, everybody knows one another.

If I am the kind of person who leaves her kitchen cupboards dirty, then everybody is about to find out.

Tomorrow.  When we move house.

Thus cornered, I trudged in from work and donned rubber gloves.  To be fair, Nigel had already wiped and hoovered everything upstairs.

But I’m glad he left me the kitchen cupboards.

It is the last caring thing that one does for one’s old home, a ritual of farewell.

It is a gesture of hope and welcome for the incoming family.

Eventually we finished our cleaning and then we went out into the garden and listened to the birdsong as the light faded behind the hornbeam.

Tomorrow evening, we’ll be in our new place, discovering whether “she’s the kind of person who….”