Spring Clean 🧼🫧

So this beautiful sunny weather has made me realise everything in my house is needing a clean. Damn sunshine showing up all the dirt. The problem is all I want to do is get outside walk, picnic and pick wildflowers. I wonder what will win…housework or 🧐

with love

Emma

This week’s domestic hazard - laundry.

Where does it all come from? The laundry I mean. Seriously we are a house of fairly minimalistic wardrobes and yet the washer rumbles on most days.

I am the most minimalist below is my vast clothing array:

No, you don’t get to see my underwear, ‘that’ has previously been flashed across social media. And yes, that is a ready-packed bag, complete with passport. (You just never know.)

I hate using so much water and electricity. We have a north-facing flat and no outdoor space so many of the heavier items have to be dried in a tumble dryer. Do you see how I am living with excessive ecological guilt here?

Most of the gripe is the amount of time it all takes. Plus, it is so fucking boring!

Washing, folding, sorting, hanging, folding, washing, untangling tights from everything, washing, sorting, round and round and round until I’m sick and no, I don’t iron - I am not completely mad.

I just don’t want to be doing this! I hate it. I hate it because it takes me away from myself. I don’t get pleasure from ‘a job well done’ and couldn’t give a monkeys about a well-folded sheet. I want to write and paint and think. But hours and hours of my precious time are spent not only doing but thinking and planning domestic chores. No wonder it’s been men throughout history who have achieved shit - women so seldom have the time.

Let’s be honest here, I’m not that good at this stuff anyway. I am a great cook, can make a room look fabulous with flowers, art, books and candles but for the love of everything holy don’t look at my unmopped floor!

On one hand, I don’t resent the chores, I am unbelievably grateful for the flat. I have lived in some pretty precarious places and positions in my life. The security here is not ever taken for granted but I just wish it would clean itself occasionally.

When you have a chronic illness there is a burden. Namely, you only have strength and energy for a few tasks daily. House stuff tends to use up so many of my resources that I have nothing left for self-care, work or fun. And let’s get real …nothing fun about housework. Even with cocktails - trust me, I’ve tried.

Well, Emma, I hear you say, get the children to do it.

Ah yes. Why didn’t I think of that, darling readers?

Because getting someone to do something they don’t give a shit about results in double, nay, treble the work - for me. As I wrestle the chaos back into the washing powder box or rewash the now greyish-tinged white sheets or rescue the dry clean-only item from destruction.

It would seem that the deal is I do this shit because it actually is quicker, easier and less hassle.

I wonder if I could convince everyone to do the 100 days one-dress experiment.

Deep Cleanse

Ingredients
1.5 oz Hendrick's Gin
2 oz Aloe Vera Juice
.5 oz simple syrup
3 slices cucumber
Squeeze fresh lime

Instructions
Muddle cucumber and simple syrup. Add other ingredients and shake well. Strain and serve up in a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cucumber slice.

This week in parenting - school.

Ping!

It’s Friday 8:32 am and please, isn’t there a deity out there to make it stop? Or at least furnish me with more coffee.

This time it isn’t my children driving me to distraction, it’s the school. So far this morning they have sent; five texts, three emails and a misspelt tweet. And these are just the general ones, there have also been two more emails and texts about my child specifically.

Ping! Arggg.

The reason? The seniors are about to begin exam study leave for a month starting at the end of today. This is the school’s idea of organisation informing parents only this morning. What an example!

A two-second bit of back story. At the start of the UK Covid lockdown, our head principal was replaced. Our previous was a little haphazard in the way things were run but he was a great communicator, built excellent community ties, and even in a school of 1500 pupils he knew each by name and a little of their personal story. His replacement was supposed to improve the budgeting, and administration and continue the good community work.

The upshot is exemplified in the morning’s appalling communication.

Now, dearest readers, you know that Daisy tells me every-single-minuet-detail-of-every-moment of her existence. I was aware of the upcoming study leave and when her exams are actually scheduled. But many were not, some parents are lucky and their teenagers only grunt at them! There are many people at our school for whom English is their second or third language and these misspelt, frequently stuffed with erroneous information emails are a nightmare. I don’t understand why as a school of all places, fails so spectacularly in communication.

This is symptomatic of the overall attitudes. They have become draconian on the correctness of school uniforms, pupils get detention if their computers are not fully charged, and they have done away with most of the extracurricular activities. Understandably there is now a breakdown in overall discipline. The pupils are gaining a negative reputation in the community as there are no lunchtime spaces or activities for them to do.

I know that all schools, internationally as well, are struggling for resources. I don’t understand this reluctance to invest in our young people but that is a whole other rant! Our school is in the city centre, housed in a very decrepit Victorian building and is overpopulated. Of course, it’s a struggle to manage. Kindness, decency and nurturing are free but all the current administration wants to do is mistrust and punish.

Demonising kids only has one outcome - to turn them into demons.

Daisy is doing incredibly well, despite the school. But that is largely because I am here to guide, fill in the gaps and support where the school fails. Thank goodness for Parkinson’s keeping me at home!

Ping!

Oh god, not another text.