After our early night last night we found that we woke up astoundingly early this morning.
We looked at the clock and realised that it was only eight o’clock.
Mark made coffee and chucked the dogs out for a quick preliminary emptying in the back garden, and then we had coffee in bed and went instantly back to sleep.
When we woke up for a second time it was half past ten, which was far more civilised: so we had another cup of coffee and discovered Number Two Daughter had arrived back from Scotland.
I don’t think I told you she has been there for the last couple of nights visiting some friends. She joined us for coffee in bed and told us all about her adventures, which were worth hearing about as her friends work in a safari park: her adventures had all sorts of creatures in them. In return we told her about mostly being asleep.
When we got up the day was mapped out. I don’t doubt that you will feel the same frisson of excitement that I did when you remember that the chore of the day was cleaning the carpets.
You will be pleased to hear that Mark did most of it, whilst I cleaned the horrible black mouldy bathroom. This turned out to be an exciting experience as I have acquired a new gadget which I saw advertised on eBay, the purpose of which is to drag hair out of plugholes.
Basically it is a long bit of wire with some velcro on the end. I removed it from its packaging, which promised free-flowing miracles: then poked it down the drain on our bath according to the instructions, joggled it about a bit and hauled it back again.
You would have been forgiven for imagining that we had been creating a graveyard for deceased tarantulas in the pipework.
The sticky bit at the end returned to the daylight dragging behind it enormous hairy dollops of rotting black stuff, so shocking that I squeaked and dropped it when they first appeared. I couldn’t bear to touch them, and had to pick them up gingerly with rubber gloves and a couple of bits of Extra Absorbent Kitchen Towel. I put them in the bin, and then had to put the bin outside into the dustbin because of a vaguely atavistic fear that it might all somehow crawl out again.
Whilst I was busy emptying the plumbing Mark was using the electric carpet scrubber. He used the whole tank full of soap that was already in the carpet cleaning machine, and almost all of the economy sized bottle of Extreme Carpet Shampoo, and by the end of it he had only cleaned the kitchen and the living room, we are going to have to get some more tomorrow to do the landing and the office.
The scrubbing machine squirts the carpet with soap and then scrubs it about a bit, then it rinses it all and slurps the dirty water back out again. It took several washes before the water that was coming out of the carpets was anything other than pure mud.
The difference was absolutely astounding. We discovered that poopy-widdle was not the only calamity which has befallen our poor carpets, there were splodges of Ritalin Boy’s ice creams, dried up puddles of spilt coffee, chewed up dog bones, dreadful cobwebs blackened with dust, and, to our utter revulsion, a hitherto-undiscovered poo which had gone mouldy down the side of the sofa.
To say that we were appalled by our own vile lack of sanitation does not sufficiently describe our dreadful feelings at the discovery of such secret abhorrences. To anybody who has visited us for coffee over the last few months, can I suggest that you pop around to your GP and get yourself checked out just in case.
After spending the entire day cleaning by the end of it we had scrubbed two carpets and cleaned the bathroom and the bedroom shelves. There is a very great deal still to be done: but the carpets feel gorgeous.
They are bright and soft and fluffy underfoot again, and so very lovely.
I feel happy just going downstairs and standing on them.
