Saturday 1 December 2012

Putting the freshness back.....


In an effort to improve my lot ……. and my home….. I have embarked on a house-cleaning program. By anyone’s standards, my cleaning abilities are not good and rarely put to the test: the Hoover fights back and my wipe always turns into a smear. When I was more gainfully employed I occasionally gave myself the luxury gift of a cleaner; a random 4 hours now and then to wrangle the dust-bunnies and unleash the Mr. Muscle. I have friends who employ cleaners so I usually sub-let one of theirs.
But now I have neither the money nor the justification for such luxuries. I hate cleaning so much I sometimes just paint over the dirt instead, as I have recently done with my hall because I found some un-used paint under the sink. However, I am not in a position to paint every room right now and so I broke the work-to-do, down into bite size jobs; one a day. Feeling rather pleased having ticked off bathroom window, my home now filled with the sweet scent of polish, I decided to reward myself with a cup of coffee. I used the coffee pot I was given by my now defunct employer, one of those Italian silver ones that screws together and sits on the hob. After awhile I began to wonder why it was taking so long. And what the smell was. Steam was emanating from the pot but no coffee was bubbling up. And something was definitely burning. Then I realised I had loaded it with coffee but forgotten the water. I tried to manoeuvre it from the gas but the black plastic handle fell off having melted. In an effort to stop the pot toppling over I burnt the tips of seven of my ten fingers, then had to wrestle it to the sink with a smouldering tea towel. I unscrewed it wearing oven-mitts and released the coffee grounds, turned to glowing embers. I’d made a mini-brazier. My home is now filled instead with the acrid scent of burnt coffee and plastic.

Top tip: forget the cleaning, go out for a coffee.

22 comments:

  1. I love cleaning, move up here and I'll be right round with my feather duster!

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  2. I've had days like that YAH - better to stop than keep fighting it!

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  3. Was it Quentin Crisp who said, after the third (or fourth?!) year, the dust doesn't get any worse?

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  4. I've certainly killed a few pots in my day. Burned eggs smell especially vile. Cleaning is a Zen exercise. Done/undone/done/undone. Etc.

    ~Beth

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  5. Oh poor you, hope the fingers are getting better, must have been a bugger to type!

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  6. I feel sympathy for your burned fingers, but I had to laugh, having had many scary incidents myself with those Italian coffee pots, including painful wrist injuries from trying to unscrew them, and once, in Italy, a mini explosion, with a stream of scalding coffee shooting out of the tiny vent on the side.

    I am with you on the cleaning. A can of white latex semi gloss is an excellent all-purpose cleaning solution.

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  7. We were discussing decorating at work the other day and I laughed at all the people who washed walls before painting them. WASHING WALLS? WTF is the point of that? Just slap a bit of paint over the muck that's what I say. Top tip don't ever let a boiled egg boil dry - the smell is something like a skunk with diarrhoea.

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  8. I loathe cleaning and leave it as long as possible between sessions. Doing it infrequently means everyone notices! x

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  9. I am the world's worst house-frau. I am not cleanign the house again until Sonshine leaves home. I hoover and dust. Wash up dishes every couple of days.....when we run out of forks :-)

    Burning your finger tips is horrible - you poor thing. But at least you've infused your house with something better than the smell of mackeral. The scent currently pervading the Hestia house.

    Take good care of those wee burned digits!

    Ali x

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  10. Oh no! Hope your fingers are ok, sweetie! Btw: cleaning is not my favourite thing to do as well. Kisses

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  11. Ahahaha. Actually, I think your top tip is painting over dirt.

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  12. Proof, if ever you needed it, housework is positively dangerous!

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  13. I'd love to get to the decorating stage at ours instead of the knocking things down and pretending to know how to fix it stage. Our dust bunnies are collecting their pension. Sorry to hear about your fingers.

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  14. Knocking things down is good. Then you can always just say "Oh sorry about the mess, we're renovating.."

    It's worked for me for years.

    Sympathies re fingers.

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  15. Which reminds me - we need to plan our coffee meet-up! Week after next looking good.

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  16. I've done that--left the Moka empty. They're hardy bits of kit though. Once you replace the rubber ring and give it a bit of a clean (ha ha) they soldier on happily for years.

    I always reward myself for the slightest bit of cleaning (i.e., removing a discarded pair of underpants to the laundry basket, well, the laundry bag for life then) by a wee drinkie. Thus, nothing gets done after about 2pm.

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  17. As a man house cleaning is something I know nothing about (only joking).

    However, doing things like leaving gas on is something I'm very familiar with. We get to that age, don't we, when we start doing all the things that, when our parents do them, they really irritate us. Oh well!

    Grey Fox
    An older man in search of style

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  18. Well done...I've been told that the smell of coffee adds a certain ambience to a home.

    PS Painting over uncleaned surfaces usually ends in the paint peeling off after a couple of months.

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  19. Totally agree (though full disclosure we have cleaners) Noone ever says on their deathbed they wish they'd done more cleaning...

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  20. Well there we are : proof, if ever we needed it, that cleaning is neverending. Presumably the coffee pot is dead, how's the hob?

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  21. I use one of these when camping and its great. The recent series about Claridges makes me realise that I need a housekeeper! xxx

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  22. I think it definitely was a sign to go out for coffee. The mishap is something I would have done as well. Note to self: read directions before plugging in any appliance.

    Hope your fingers are healing.

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