Ruby Grimshaw contemplates spring cleaning

It’s nearly spring so that could mean spring cleaning to some people. I have never been much of a cleaner. While I like everything in my house to be in its place and uncluttered – I am an expert at shoving things into cupboards and closing doors on shelves bursting with junk, so that in record time what was a shambles of a room is now a tidy space fit for entertaining. It does not bother me over much that the carpet hasn’t been hoovered in weeks.

“I’m an expert at closing doors on bursting shelves”

My mother was not a great fan of the big ‘spring clean’ so maybe that is my excuse. I do have a friend who, on the first warm day in March, ties on her pinny and pulls on yellow marigolds and with a grim expression begins a ferocious attack on her house, from the loft to the cellar (well, the garage, there isn’t a basement). And she does mean business. Every curtain is taken down and either washed or sent to the cleaners; all the kitchen cupboards are emptied and scrubbed; every piece of furniture moved; each window cleaned inside and out. Do people (other than my age group I mean) still do this sort of cleaning?

I am short-sighted too, which is a great help in not noticing cobwebs in the corners of ceilings. Several times last week I noticed a tiny money spider dangling in front of my nose while I was having breakfast and, of course, everyone knows they are lucky, so I just moved along a bit so as not to disturb it too much. It was only when I happened to look up one day and screwed my eyes a bit that I made out his substantial mass in the corner next to the boiler pipe. Still, I didn’t worry unduly. Everyone knows that cobwebs are left undisturbed in stables because spiders are useful in eating up insects and flies.

However, I was a little shamefaced a few weekends ago. Daughter C had been entertaining her little godchild who had taken a fancy to my collection of elephants which stampede along my mantelpiece.
“I hadn’t noticed they had been moved,” I said, when I came home later. “No, I’m not surprised,” laughed daughter C, “I was able to replace their little feet exactly into the round dust marks they had left behind!”
I could always apply to be on How clean Is Your House? Does one get paid? At least I’d get my house cleaned.