All the drama of an archaeological dig in the privacy of my own bedroom
THE bedroom spring- clean happened early this year. One weekend of bad weather with no sporting or social engagements turned thoughts to tidying. The magazines with their cookery sections had been innocently littering the floor beside the bed for weeks. Now suddenly they had become an eyesore demanding prompt dispatch to the bring centre. The plan had been to cook up a hearty minestrone soup or maybe a vegetarian curry. But the recipes so glossily purveyed in the mags were somehow never called upon.
They were still there when I slipped out of the four-poster on Saturday morning and felt the going underfoot uneven. It dawned that a layer of old newspapers, cardboard and assorted pieces of plastic junk completely obscured the carpet beneath my feet. Yes, the room has a waste-paper bin, but this had long since been filled beyond capacity. Toothpaste packaging and spent deodorant roll-ons had tumbled hither and yon as the bin overflowed.
After a decade of chastising offspring for abuse of their good clothes, I realised that I had been every bit as haphazard in folding and putting away the laundry. Of course the jumbled jumpers and tossed aside trousers had been there the previous Saturday, and many Saturdays before that.
The film of grey dust on the clutter of books and boxes and bags suggested beyond all reasonable doubt that they also had not been scattered overnight by some malevolent hobgoblin. They had been there for weeks, nay, months. They were evidence of a period of wilful negligence stretching back to the great spring-clean of 2019. But now the time had come to make everything ship-shape. The time had come, just as it comes every year.
Hermione’s oft-repeated, acid, exasperated comments about ‘ the state of the place’ had never previously struck home, perhaps because she is herself not altogether without sin in this department. There was an element of pot calling kettle black in her remarks which made them easy to ignore.
She has, for instance, colonised the top of the chest-of-drawers with cosmetic potions, creams and unguents (I love that word). I have been known to respond to her chiding by pointing to this anarchic assemblage of lipsticks, moisturisers and eye-liners, while expressing bafflement at my dear spouse’s desire to gild the lily of her perfectly flawless face and skin with such products.
Be all that as it may, on this particular morning, after listening to the rain drumming on the window throughout breakfast, I declared that the time had come for me to smarten up the bedroom. So began a most interesting four hour shift.
My labours had all the drama of an archaeological dig, sifting down through the dross to bring artefacts of veiled antiquity back into the light of day. Nuts and un-matching bolts. Chargers for electronic devices long since overtaken by the march of technological progress. Certificates issued for attendance at one-day computer software courses. Receipts for foodstuffs and medicines.
How did I come to have so many golf tees? When was I ever at that hotel in Offaly, with its logo emblazoned on this ballpoint which stubbornly refuses to write? What locks will turn using this bunch of assorted keys?
The exercise yielded six euro and 27 cent in retrieved small change, not to mention 50 pence sterling, some much crinkled Turkish lira notes and a yoke for freeing supermarket trolleys..
Most mysterious of all were the water bottles. The water bottles of blue-tinged plastic. The water bottles with those flip-top teats. There were 23 of them. I have never knowingly brought a blue tinged water bottle with a flip top teat into the bedroom. Hermione must be the person responsible - but why?
Challenged on the issue, she muttered something about being sure they will come in useful some time. Some time? Like the next time we happen to have two teams of thirsty soccer players come to call, with one left over for the referee…
I hoovered under the bed and only sneezed twice. I folded five pairs of jeans. I filled four bin bags. Best of all, I re-united 15 stray socks with their partners. At the end of the process, I was well ready for bowl of hearty soup. I’m sure I had a recipe, somewhere.