Today I wanted to give the house a thorough tidying up in order to make way for more stuff that comes with Christmas! We managed to get a head start last night by doing the mountain of ironing that had accumulated during the week so that was one less chore for this morning!

I decided that Mr Grump could do downstairs and I would tackle the upstairs. On opening the door to Miss Hap’s room, I recoiled at the sight that greeted me. School uniform draped over her chair, as it’s obviously too far to walk to the washing bin in the bathroom! Pillows flung around the bed (she is one restless sleeper), duvet on the floor!  There were a couple of reading books in the bed along with four annuals (that child does love an annual, anything from ‘The Beano’ to ‘Top Gear’). Along with the books were an assortment of sequins and pins from the latest ‘Sequin Art’ she is creating.

Miss Hap uses her double bed as a kind of den, where she does her homework, (the laptop was also on the bed), projects, drawing and reading, so it holds a  cornucopia of  crap that gets left there until the next time she uses it. The sequins and pins have also found their way onto the floor along with bits of scrap paper, a few items of clothing, and the odd hair bobble! Her drawers were half open with stuff poking out of the top, and there was stuff sticking out from under the bed, where it had been shoved out of sight!

I was going to leave it for her to do, as she is now old enough to be keeping her room tidy at least. For some reason, she does not see why a room should be tidied when it will only get messed up again, and she cannot see the logic in keeping it tidy in the first place so it doesn’t get messy. Against my better judgement I decided to clean it up and I gingerly entered the fray armed with my weapons of giant rubbish bag, and duster, Luckily as I had just finished tidying Mr Grump offered to vacuum as that is my least favourite task, and I was already starting to get in a mood due to the fact it took me ages to put everything away and get the room looking nice.

I went off to tackle the rest of my jobs upstairs, and was just scrubbing out the sink in the bathroom when Mr Grump blundered in with the vacuum cleaner, stubbing my toe with the attachment as he barged about haphazardly. As I have a very painful ingrown toenail I let loose a couple of choice expletives at him. As Miss Hap was not there to hear them and repeat them at inappropriate times (like in front of my Mum, or out in the middle of town) I had an extensive range to choose from, and I decided that I would run the gamut and use the lot before stomping off downstairs (well, hobbling actually)!

After a (cold) half cup of tea, and a bit of a sit-down, my toe stopped throbbing and we both finished off the chores we wanted to do so that the house was spick and span. I even got out my fancy Christmas plates and dishes (which caused more work as they were a bit grimy from having been put away for a year, and had to have a good wash) and nibbles have been set out early.(I don’t want to be left with loads of food knocking about, so don’t see the point in waiting until Christmas Day before anyone is allowed to touch anything)! Shame those dry roasted peanuts are so tempting that I can’t resist tucking in every time I go near the table!

Anyway, for now, the work is done…. Miss Hap’s room has everything packed away nicely which is just as well, really as come Christmas Day, there will no doubt be lots of  lovely new things that we need to find a home for!!