Ready to come home

As we get older time passes so quickly.  As we get ready to leave on our walk of the South Downs Way I can already imagine us returning, tired and with the usual deflated post-holiday feeling.  

So we prepare a lovely homecoming for ourselves. 
We tidy up, change the beds, scrub the bathrooms, hoover the carpets and book a supermarket delivery.
When we get back to our cosy home it'll be easier to leave the post-holiday blues on the doorstep.

How did things go this far?

Today I allowed myself to get caught up in a train of events which led to hardcore housework.

I must watch myself and not let it happen again.

It started with a project which has been shelved for far too long – I’m making a winter coverlet for our bed. 

Even given my shortcomings as a needlewoman, the new coverlet will look smarter than the child’s sleeping bag (from IKEA in the 1990s) which we currently lay over our bed on cold nights.

During a lockdown is the perfect time to complete such a task.

I had to find a big bit of floor to lay it out.  Only the sitting room would do.  And only after we removed the chairs.

But then I could see how dirty the wood floor was. 

I swept it, but that wasn’t enough.

So I mopped it, but then it looked rather dull and matt. 

So then I got out the floor polish – its first outing in around four years - and sprayed the floor with it.

And now I’m waiting for it to dry so I can buff it up.

And the coverlet?

I’m no further forward.

Missing you

So the twins moved out. 

Some, although very definitely not ALL of their gear has gone with them.

Just like a beach during one of those especially low tides at Easter, parts of their bedrooms were exposed that hadn’t seen the light of day in months.

It stimulated in me a primitive urge to clean.  One that I am normally able to overcome. 

But perhaps cleaning would make me feel better.

Faced with the carpet under their beds, the hoover gave an asthmatic wheeze and demanded to be emptied.

It also became obvious that many of the shampoos/skin scrubs and cleansing products which STILL jostled for position on the bathroom shelf never were going to be used again, and could now be recycled.

But just as I had my sleeves rolled up and a black bag gaping, I heard a key in the door.

Perran was home.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve got a couple of days’ holiday and we haven’t got wi-fi connected yet.”

I think our central heating may have been an added attraction.

Although obviously I have been telling everybody that it was just that he missed me so much!

However, it’s the weekend and he’s gone again now, and I’m on my way upstairs once more to attack the ‘dust bunnies’ under his bed.

Actually, I’ve just had a good look at them – make that ‘dust rhinos’.