Duster

I did some dusting.

Not all of it, by a long chalk, but some.

I was inspired to do it by the knowledge that until it is done, every single morning I am going to wake up to the depressing thought that today is the day when I have got to do dusting.

I did our bedroom.

I didn’t get round to the bathroom, the office and the rest of it because I got distracted by the fascinating project of tidying our drawers.

I can assure you that this is great fun.

All of our summer things had to be collected up and stored carefully on top of the wardrobe. By summer things, really I mean Mark’s shorts. I had also got some shorts but threw most of mine away because they had got to the state of disreputability at which although I felt perfectly comfortable wearing them, I was embarrassed to hang them on the washing line.

Also due to lack of storage space, during the summer months shorts live in what is supposed to be a tidy and accessible pile underneath the chest of drawers, and when I got them out I discovered that not only was it not a tidy pile, but the poopies had been in there and chewed them a bit and also had some unfortunate leaks.

I put away the usable shorts and rearranged our jerseys. They are now in beautifully tidy piles organised according to type.  I can’t tell you how very satisfying this is. There are soft cashmeres, cotton knits, heavy wool, and some fleecy hoodies that we bought in Disneyland.

I like these last ones very much because they are brilliantly vivid colours and display enormous pictures of Mickey Mouse. Unfortunately, although they are pleasingly warm and comfortable, this is not considered stylish attire for public school parents’ evenings, or even Sports Day, and hence they get shoved to the back of the shelf quite a lot.

I redistributed our T-shirts between the drawer and the dustbin and the duster pile. There were a couple of long woollen cardigans that I never wear, because I don’t like the way the sleeves fit, so I put them on the dressmaker’s dummy to photograph them, then optimistically wrapped them up for posting and advertised them on eBay.

For some tiresome and inexplicable reason the photographs came out upside down. I tried several times, with no better results, and in the end had to give up, perhaps somebody in Australia will buy them.

I suggested to the children that they helped with the dusting, but Oliver had got Harry making companionable shooting noises in his bedroom, and Lucy had got so much prep that she was really sorry but she couldn’t possibly spare the time.

I couldn’t spare any more time either, and so had to give up and get everything ready for work. We are eating hot things out of flasks for our picnic at the moment, dipping into them with doughy Italian bread on to which I have melted slabs of tangy cheese. This is wonderful, it is making eating a great pleasure, if probably something we should not do quite so much.

Mark came home from the farm, and we had cups of tea before work. We have taken to steeping pots of fragrant black tea at this time of day, which is, I suppose, called tea time in this part of the world, Oliver has Low Tea at school. I am sure if I were middle class enough I would know the difference between Low Tea and High Tea, but I don’t. Ours is probably Medium Tea. It is a small happiness in a busy day, to stop for tea in a pretty teacup, and apple cake.

I have asked Mark to buy me some new teacups for Christmas, we looked at the ones I liked on eBay, you will not be surprised to hear that they turned out to be about three times the price of all of the rest. It might be that I have to have a teacup this Christmas, and a saucer for the next one, and Mark’s teacup will have to wait until we win the lottery.

The picture is one my father sent to me this morning, surprisingly, it is me in Coniston in my extreme youth, wearing, unsurprisingly, since the weather then was similar to the weather now, a macintosh, and also an expression similar to the one I employ all of the time at work now.

I have just included it to show you.