Tagged: tidying

Purge

So as well as unfollowing a load of spare folk on Twitter, I’ve also been doing my bit for the environment by chucking out bagfuls of crap that I’ve been hoarding about the place for a while. ‘Mmm, so cathartic!’ I promise myself, as yet another black sack bounces down the stairs, on its way to the landfill site formerly known as outside-my-front-door. Black sacks of crap. How do I have SO MUCH crap? Where does it come from? I don’t remember acquiring it. That’s bad, right? Right. Hence my ongoing domestic streamlining. What I’m handily naming (rhyme alert) my innate ‘urge to purge’.

There are numerous places one can store crap, even in the smallest of abodes. Under my bed. On top of chests of drawers. In cupboards. Under the stairs. In the downstairs loo. Behind, around and on top of the actual downstairs loo. In the dungeon. In wicker storage boxes which once promised so much in terms of useful storage, but then just became, sadly and inevitably, receptacles for crap. There’s crap on top of crap. Crap within crap. Bags of crap in boxes of crap, hidden behind crap with more crap on top for extra camouflage. Crap I’d forgotten about, crap I hadn’t forgotten about but was studiously ignoring, crap I was fully aware of and hated, crap I like and can’t get rid of but know I should, crap I love and won’t part with until it is yanked from my cold, dead grip, and crap that is not crap but only masquerading as crap until I become enlightened to its actual use once more.

That’s a lot of FARKING CRAP.

This purge is continuous and lengthy. I see no end to it. I am responsible for 80% of the country’s rubbish at the moment. It is sitting in the bins outside my house. Well, actually, the bins aren’t outside my house, they’re up by the main road, and I can’t see them, which is excellent, cos then I can absolve myself of the terrible fact that I have filled all the bins, in the universe, ever. With my purged crap.

What I can, I donate to charity. The charity shops on Gloucester Rd are currently displaying many items from my past wardrobes within their windows. Just a bit spooky and weird-a-go-go, as I walk along and think, ‘Oh that’s a nice dress… and cardigan… and scarf… that I once wore. That exact outfit they have on the mannequin I wore to someone’s wedding two years ago. And looks better there. Damn.’

At least I haven’t bought anything back that I once owned. Yet.

But some things I can’t donate. The crap, mostly. So that goes in black sacks. Black sacks of doom.

I know why I’m doing this. Purging is good, yeah? In this way? New beginnings, letting go of the past, all that stuff. The ex and I will have to sort all the joint purchases soon. He’s moving away and making a new life for himself – no need to hang on to the past, is there. Some things are precious and won’t be purged, but other stuff? Stuff is only stuff. Crap. Things neither of us need, nor want. This current purge of mine is a kind of preparation, I think, for the next, significant, tandem purge. Good times.

In the meantime, anyone want some good quality crap? I have LOADS.

What do you hang on to, that you really should purge? Are you a hoarder, or do you find it easy to let go?

 

Tidy

My mum babysat Moo for me last night, while I went and Tudored in a desultory fashion on stage somewhere. As well as eating my best biscuits, my mum also did my washing up.

Let’s skip over the biscuit-eating part for the moment. Largely cos I’m still aghast that someone touched my best biscuits without my permission. I mean, I know she gave birth to me and raised me and everything, but seriously – my BEST biscuits? Could she not have eaten my stale macaroons instead? Or the water biscuits? Yes I know they’re savoury but they’re still farking biscuits, innit. Anyway, if you’re reading this, I love you, mum. Don’t eat my biscuits.

Washing up. I hate washing up. This is why: slimy food crap. Slimy food crap on plates. Slimy food crap on plates in the water. Slimy food crap from plates in the water, floating ON TOP OF the water, and then it becomes slimy food crap IN THE SINK. Slimy food crap that I then have to scrape from the plughole-slimy-food-crap-catching-thing and put into the bin. Where it becomes bin crap, and by proxy, bin juice. And we all know bin juice is RANCID MINGE.

But I will do the washing up. I have to . There is no husband here to do it for me any more. And generally, I keep on top of it. I’d only left it last night cos there wasn’t much and I had to get ready for my miserable Tudor flounce-a-bout.

I mention it though because I’ve had a house guest recently who did rather more than the washing up for me. In fact, this house guest practically SPRUNG CLEANED my house. They cleaned my kitchen, including the bin and all the bin juice. They removed the mould from my shower. They hoovered. And dusted a bit. And yes, did the washing up. A lot.

I am grateful. I am, truly. It is no secret that I am a domestic slattern. There are better things to do than housework, innit. Like watching Moo try to jump (‘C’mon, Moo! It’s not jumping till your feet leave the ground! TRY HARDER!’ *falls about laughing*) and active spider avoidance, or eating biscuits (which I can’t do now, THANKS MUM) or grooming unicorns, or practising voodoo.

I thought I was tidy, though. I really did. I thought I was coping with the houseworkisms. Seems not, if a guest feels the need to demouldify my bathroom (honestly, where did they find that Haz-Mat suit?) and my mum does my washing up for me. I know, I know, they’re HELPING me and that’s GREAT, I do appreciate it. But a tiny part of me – the stupid, juvenile, petulant part – sees it as a massive criticism too.

They’re right. I know they’re right. I do need to improve my domestic skillz. I need to man up and find some rubber gloves and spank the shit out of my cruddy house.

Tomorrow, probably.

How do you keep tidy? (no, not talking about muff for once) (but you can tell me that if you want to)