The trouble with having someone else clean your house – unless you have been married to them for 43 years - is that if they are incompetent, you end up doing the job anyway and if they are good at their job, you feel you have to clean before they come so they don’t despise you for being a dirty Dora.
I have only once paid someone to clean my house, not because of any principle – after all, some people like cleaning, and why not earn a living doing it? – but because the woman cried off the following week with some excuse, and never came back, and I am sure it was because she was overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the task.
But why am I wittering on about cleaning?
Partly because the windows are filthy, and partly because that thing about having to tidy up before the cleaner comes, is like the situation I am in with the doctor.
Let me explain. In September, during the hectic run up to my book launch, I got a letter from the GP offering me an over 60 check up, and not having any spare time, I tossed it to the back of my desk. After the book launch, I went to California, then I had my cataract removed, and then it was Christmas. Now I have run out of excuses.
But…. it is after Christmas and of course I have put on weight. I know how strict the nurse is at our surgery – a friend went down for her over 60 check-up – a fit friend, a friend I would not have thought was more than half a stone overweight - and was told she was almost three stone overweight and apple-shaped. I was furious on her behalf, but that’s not the point. The point is – I DON’T WANT TO BE TOLD I AM OVERWEIGHT WHEN I KNOW I AM, AND I CERTAINLY DON’T WANT TO BE TOLD I AM APPLE SHAPED WHEN I CERTAINLY AM NOT.
So now I have to lose my Christmas weight before I go for my check-up. You see, if I get back to my normal weight, I can say to the nurse, “I have been this weight for years and years and have never had anything seriously wrong with me,” and so stub her out.
And what has airport security for cats got to do with any of this?
We don’t have a cat-flap because we don’t want the cat to bring in presents for us in the form of livestock. (That rabbit was bad enough. And when you have read episode one on that last link, here is episode two.) This means that there are dirty paw marks on all of our windows from when she signals to us that she wants to come in, and the low winter sun shows them up. We need a cat-flap that doesn’t allow the cat to bring anything inside the house, not even paw-luggage.
And I need to ask Dave to clean the windows.
p.s. The photo of the cat is out of date. She, too, has put on weight since she arrived here, 8 years ago. But that’s another story.
3 comments:
You are not alone on the weight gain situation - I am reliably informed that the well-known 'cabbage soup diet' does the business within 7 days. You can drop 8-10lbs, while eating as much soup as you like.
I am contemplating, for similar reasons to you.
Enough is enough.
Xx
Smiled broadly reading this!! in recent years my cleaner has also been someone very well known to me for over 43 years He is most efficient and open to gentle advice. Serious cleaning is still something of a revelation to him but he delights in learning this new skill and being such a treasure when I can no longer "do the heavy lifting" .
You are so right about the stress of having a cleaner, my own frail 91 yr old mother feels she must tidy everything before the agency person arrives!!
In our house, it's Dave who is the better one at deep cleaning. But he works on praise power. Some of us have to manage without praise. As Fran says in BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU, " ..the job of housewife is like the job of projectionist at the cinema - you get no appreciation and people only notice when you don't do your job. "
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