Getting boring

It's day three of Operation Crap Breathing, and thus the topic is a little passé, I feel. I shall talk about something more interesting instead.

I just hoovered my ceiling.* I have decided that it is time to clean the upstairs of my house very thoroughly in order to vastly reduce the amount of dust and mould, just in case either of them is causing any problems. I decided to start with the windowsills, as they were the area in which the greatest difference could be seen with the least amount of effort.

In order to be kind to the environment, I have been using peat-free compost for the pot plants within my house. Unfortunately, this sort of compost seems to be very attractive to fruit flies. They have happily colonised the three chili plants sharing a pot on my landing windowsill, and have set about breeding and dying with great aplomb. They leave their dead where they lie, either in the pot or wherever else they land, what with being fruit flies and all that. As a creature of higher intelligence, I suppose it is up to me to dispose of their dead, but I have been slacking off somewhat with that particular duty.

Today I seized the fruit fly by the horns. I removed the chili plants from the landing and bedroom windowsills and put them outside. Hopefully this will kill off any fruit flies on the plants and in the compost. I then set to hoovering the surrounding area to remove the massive amount of corpses scattered about (yes, I know, my housekeeping standards are abysmal. Thanks for pointing that out). I then wiped everything down with copious amounts of environmentally friendly surface spray (naturally) and stepped back to admire my handiwork.

The ceiling was covered in live fruit flies. I suppose that "covered" is a bit of an exaggeration; "liberally dotted" would perhaps be a better term to use. Either way, they were spoiling the pristine appearance that was happening above floor level. So I did the only thing I could - got the hoover out.

It was very satisfying. The ceiling looks great. Except, of course, for the plaster. I managed to avoid the two spiders sitting there, although they will have to go some time. I'm not having them pooing all over my house again. Probably.

So, mission very nearly accomplished. Two windowsills and a ceiling are clean. That's practically the whole top floor. I only need to wash every fabric item which has been used, put away the clean ones, wipe down the entire bathroom, hoover the entire bedroom carpet and mattress, wipe down the chests of drawers, hoover, clean and tidy the spare bedroom and clean its windowsill and hoover the bathroom and landing and upstairs will be done. Oh, and dry all of the washing. Thank goodness they put the heating on at work the other day - the weather has been great since. If only they had thought of that in June - the summer could have been saved...

It has just occurred to me that I am doing myself down and making myself sound like a disaster domestically. Please don't get that impression. I am actually quite tidy.** After all, I did not forget to hoover the rubber plant on the landing.




*This, I suppose, is only interesting insofar as it doesn't happen everyday; I must confess that I may be stretching the meaning of the word "interesting" a little further than is advisable.

**I don't think I am able to classify this as sarcasm - it's just a lie. I think that they are subtly different. This is the wrong side of the sarcasm/lie divide.