Monday turned out to be cleaning day......

It could not be postponed any longer. And the elusive cleaning fairy is nowhere to be seen, so this morning, I hauled out the duster and polish and cloth and pile of assorted cleaning stuff, not to mention the vacuum cleaner which is now sitting in the middle of the lounge.

And then I had a rest.

 It was an ordeal. What can I say.....

And before any of you start telling me what a wonderful thing it is to make your home clean and beautiful for your family, let me point out that there are very few members of the family here to impress at any one time. They have flown the nest. There are, of course, the guests who happen to darken my door at odd times, though.

But the time comes when it has to be done. Like now.

I can do the make it beautiful part and I LOVE that bit. It is the cleaning which is a nightmare. For me. The actual doing part. You girls may be able to crouch and kneel without thinking about it as you polish the legs of YOUR multitudes of coffee tables and cabinets, which need polish because they are yellowwood, stinkwood or blackwood or oak, and heating plays havoc with them if they are not polished regularly. Not to mention the dust. But I can't. It involves getting onto the floor and wriggling on my backside across the room. Then it involves needing a crane to get me up off the floor again. Which is why I always have the phone in my pocket.

And why my house needs cleaning.

Groan.

So, 3 hours later and the lounge furniture has been thoroughly polished. But I have yet to vacuum. Half of this sudden urge to clean is because the sun has been shining for the past few days, though not today, and oh good grief, does it show all the dust...... I have hot air central heating, so it just blows more dust around daily. Such a delight.

I have also polished the wooden furniture in the kitchen/family room. Add that to the list. And the table in the entrance. But that is it so far. We will not discuss the kitchen floor, or under the long table. It needs to be scrubbed, and tiles and knees and crawling are off the agenda permanently, so a wipe with a mop is all it gets.

Ironically, I actually don't dislike cleaning at all. It is part of what I do, so it is second nature. I do dislike ironing, I admit. But cleaning was never an issue, until I found it impossible to kneel. Aiyaiyai. The frustration levels soar, because it is a reminder of what I used to do and can't do now. Not the way I want to do it. At the speed I used to do it all. And we will not mention the tops of the kitchen cupboards, because getting up, as I used to, onto the counters and walking around scrubbing the tops of cupboards with hot soapy water is Out Of The Question.

No, you can rest assured, it is not a hovel, because I am exaggerating slightly. It is simply me moaning a little because I want it to be done NOW and I can't do it. But it does look pretty. Bright. Springlike. Yes, as you can see from the photos, the red is gone and the Spring stuff is out. Well. Some of the Spring stuff is out because I gave up after I found 3 boxes of it, and 2.5 of them have Easter things in, so we are going for a simplified Spring look, which will become a very complicated Easter look this year. And that will do perfectly. The boxes came out on Saturday and that took care of my weekend. The sewing room is piled high with winter things and I am pretending the room does not exist.

It is now later, and the vacuuming is finally done and said vacuum cleaner is now parked at the top of the stairs because I have not touched a thing up there, but I ran out of steam. And I had to listen to Jean talking on our local radio about her upcoming trip to Nepal, where she taught in 1975. In fact, I may get her to do a guest post or two  when she gets back, because she will have some great stories to tell. I watched an episode of The World's Most Dangerous Roads a few weeks ago about the road from Kathmandu to the Chinese border, and my hair stood on end. Oh, she said happily, yes, we will be going along that road. Right. I will expect a text message every 5 minutes so we know she is not at the bottom of a canyon.

Where was I.... oh, having a valid reason to stop cleaning. That and the fact that I could not actually straighten up. So, here I am, with coffee. And because I am a blogger, and like to keep things real, here is what I was careful not to get in my photos of the lounge.

That was after I sprayed the antique desk with Flash cleaner instead of polish and had to dry it immediately before it left water stains everywhere. Sigh.

 But LOOK! All the ripples are finished and ends are all sewn in. That took all of last night, but they are done. Missy's one and the one for the dolly, and the red one for next winter.

 I am really happy with the way they turned out, I must say - I love the waves in the red one. The pink one has 2 shades of pink and white in it, but it is hard to see the difference.

See, I can finish things. Sometimes.