I was having such a lovely time with the dusting today that I actually got distracted by the beguiling prospects of doing my tax return and also cleaning the black gunk out of the bottom of the dishwasher.
We don’t use the dishwasher on account of the colossal cost involved, we save it for special occasions like having friends round and being too drunk to wash up. Having your dishes blow-dried seems to me to be an expense with which we can probably dispense for most of the time, especially when we have got so many handy children.
In any case I like to drink my coffee out of Royal Albert China mugs, which fit perfectly in my hand and hold almost enough coffee to wake me up in the mornings, and they are decadently painted with gold which I do not wish to see scrubbed off by an indifferent mechanical assistant. In consequence we wash them, lovingly, by hand, or reluctantly and grumpily by hand if it is the children doing it.
However this week we have had a mysterious puddle forming on the kitchen carpet for which I was initially inclined to blame the dogs, then the children, and finally traced to the unused dishwasher filling itself up with smelly water which was not draining away.
I remembered this joyfully when I was halfway through the dreadful dreary dusting, and dashed downstairs to see what I could do about it.
I found out the hard way that the drain bit was full of broken glass settled nicely in a nasty black-mould jelly. I baled it all out and scrubbed it and held my bleeding fingers under the tap for a while and then had no further excuse for not continuing with the dusting.
This led to a terrible agonising experience when I discovered that our model of the Eiffel Tower was not working.
This is a lovely piece of possibly not terribly tasteful decoration which is cheerily illuminated by little changing-coloured lights. We bought it from a street vendor outside Disneyland on our holidays last year. I like it very much, and was upset to find that the lights were failing to come on.
When I opened the bottom up I discovered that the Arabic-looking batteries inside were leaking battery acid everywhere.
The experience of battery acid coupled with cut fingers is not one that I think you would like to know more about. It is not one that I want to know anything about ever again, although Mark, who does things with cars, was sympathetic enough to make it instantly obvious that it was a familiar experience to him.
After that I proceeded with extreme caution, who would have thought that dusting could be so hazardous?
Lucy helpfully bathed the dogs whilst I dusted, because there was an awful lot of dust. There was also rather a lot of glitter, left over from a Mothering Tuesday card sent by Number One Daughter which she had amusingly filled with handfuls of fine gold glitter. This clung to the still-on-display card and scattered everywhere whenever a breath of air moved in its vicinity.
I flapped it about over the bin and then filed it with various other juvenile mementoes, including a letter from Oliver’s primary school teacher addressed to the Tooth Fairy explaining that Oliver had inadvertently got his tooth stuck in a banana and eaten it, and that he hoped that this would not mean that he would forfeit the monetary reward involved, and a long-ago Easter card from a child who had clearly been instructed to write what they wanted to say about Easter, and who had only been able to come up with: ” Dear Mummy. Soon it will be Easter. Love from Lucy Ibbetson.”
In the end I have banished the ghastly grey fluff from everywhere. I have restored beauty and order to my house, and in the process, to my soul, which is a very pleasant feeling.
I will not need to get up tomorrow and look at the horrible grey-coated shelves and feel out of temper with myself. I know that I will come home from work tonight to clean sheets and a house smelling of polish and lavender, which is a joy to consider.
Best of all, I know that I won’t have to do any more dusting for ages.
