Today we did the cleaning.
We both did it, which made it easier, and we did it after sleeping for as long as we liked, which helped as well.
Cleaning is dull, and there were all sorts of things that we would both have preferred to be doing, like painting pictures on the landing walls, or building the solar energy panel in the conservatory. This last is still in bits on the yard. We did not do anything about it today, although we are itching to get on with it, and we are looking forward to tomorrow very much indeed.
We thought that we would leave everything that we wanted to do until Sunday. Today we decided instead to pursue the path of righteousness, and rid our house of smelly bacteria and unhealthy fungus.
I do not know if we exactly succeeded in this. It has been a bit chilly to have the doors and windows open lately, and our half-underground house is beginning to get a bit damp. Indeed, I found a pair of boots on what I had thought was a perfectly acceptably dry shelf this week, and discovered that they were crawling with long fingers of horrible greasy black mould.
It was actually nice to clean. I have got a thing called Spotify on my computer, which means that you can choose to listen to absolutely any music you like, the modern world is a magnificent place. Whilst we were cleaning I put on an album of Disneyland music.
This was not the songs from their films, but the background music that is played over the speakers whilst you are ambling about in the Disneyland parks. I like this very much. It is jolly music. There are no inconvenient passions or complicated tragedies or minor key melodies. It is unashamedly cheerful, and it cheered me up.
There was some ragtime, and some sea shanties, and some bouncy piano, and it all plinked away energetically whilst we polished things and hoovered. I helped it all along by lighting my favourite candle so that everywhere smelled nice as well.
I have been being very careful with this candle, because I am having a minor candle crisis at the moment. Mostly I make my own candles, but I have one ultra-favourite sort of candle in the world ever, with a fragrance that I have never managed to replicate, and the only people who sell them in the whole of Europe have just gone broke.
You can now buy them only in America.
Obviously under these distressing circumstances my only hope for a bourbon-and-maple scented future is that we can hurry up and leave the EU and sign a trade deal with the US, because the import tax on scented candles turns out to be absolutely massive.
I have written to the candle making company requesting that they make a proper effort to find another shop in England so that they can start selling candles to people like me again, but so far they have not written back.
I suppose they are very busy selling lots and lots of their wonderful Jim Beam Maple candles to fortunate Americans. I had a look on the mighty Internet at their Interactive Map and they have got candle shops splattered about absolutely all over America. It is truly the Land Of Opportunity. I hope the Americans jolly well appreciate it. They could light one every single day and not even notice, because when it burns out they could just pop out and buy another.
On reflection I do not know if it is tactful to be envying the Americans their varied opportunities for naked flames on a day when so much of it is on fire. If you are an American please accept my apologies. It must be beyond dreadful for your country to be on fire. I would send you some of our Cumbrian rain if I could, we have got plenty spare.
I have bought the very last Jim Beam Maple candles in England, the very, very last. There are no more advertised for sale anywhere. I am very pleased to have them, because they are the most glorious dark woody smell imaginable, and I light them when I am doing something special or important.
Cleaning is not special although it is arguably important, but the music and the lovely dark scent breathing through the house made it all feel almost like a holiday. When we had finished everywhere gleamed a lovely polished gleam, and we hardly noticed at all that half of the house is buried underneath a massive stack of kitchens.
We had a contented cup of tea on the sofa before we came out to work, and thought of the nice things we would do tomorrow in our clean house.
I am looking forward to it.
