Another fine mess

When a not-so-routine handbag clear-out delivers Sophie White a deeply unpleasant shock, she realises that she may need to de-clutter her house

While it is not exactly spring-like yet, the urge to spring clean and dispense with the mountains of shite that appear to multiply in my home during unsupervised moments has hit early.

I wouldn’t be a natural cleaner. I am at my most comfortable in a state of chaos, so it’s really, really rare that I am moved to address the piles of toys, old curling pieces of bread, and Lego that make up the carpeting solution in my house. Even stepping barefoot on what we refer to as Unidentifiable Moist Objects will rarely illicit much more than a faint noise of surprise and a quick swipe of a baby wipe.

If the UMO is being more stubborn, I will usually pretend I didn’t see it and let one of the children deal with it. Baby II is particularly mad for floor detritus; he’s more Hoover than baby, basically.

This somewhat early spring-clean frenzy was actually prompted by a very specific, very icky occurrence about a week ago. I was rummaging in my bag in an absent-minded fashion, while chatting to a work contact at an upmarket event. I was looking for my phone to take note of some info, and was nodding along to her words when I pulled out what I thought was my phone.

A strange look stole across her face at the appearance of the object in my hand. It was not my phone, but a partially-melted, phone-shaped bar of chocolate, with not a scrap of a wrapper on it. It had clearly just been roaming free and naked in my handbag since who knows when. Bits of lint, receipts and other handbag-dwellers had even become stuck to it.

It was an unfortunate encounter, as it seemed to somewhat undercut my veneer of professionalism. Little did I know that even worse awaited me when I later delved deeper into the bag to do a full clear-out. There, nestled among the festering crap, was a little container of urine. Actual piss was residing in my handbag.

It was a hospital-issued sample pot, obviously a hangover from my last pregnancy. The bad news? I haven’t been pregnant in at least 16 months. Grim.

I suppose, with a person as lazy as I, it was always going to take a particularly hideous uncovering such as this to deliver the wake-up call I clearly so desperately need. Evidently, it’s time to embark on a spring clean of the house. A good pre-clean feed is in order, as who knows when I’ll have the appetite for eating again after the horrors I’ll excavate there.

This quick, savoury sausage and cheese bake is deliciously moreish, and you can play with the flavours, depending on what’s in the fridge.

“It was a hospital-issued sample pot, obviously a hangover from my last pregnancy. I haven’t been pregnant in 16 months”