"Dirty Boys!"

We will never have a pristine house, it will never happen.
This little nugget of realisation came to me this morning when I was sat on the loo reading HOME & ANTIQUES. In this glossy, page after page of beautifully arranged Georgian and Victorian “items”, all polished and dusted within an inch of their lives, stand side by side with vases of newly cut roses from the “mature” garden, whilst the pearl draped owner sits comfortably on the plump settee drinking a cup of filter coffee.By her feet, a small border terrier is asleep. He is clean and well groomed (in an untidy designer way) and there isn’t a dog hair or scratch mark to be seen!
I am writing this during our all too brief Sunday lie in. The animals have been fed and watered and the dogs walked. Chris has had breakfast in bed, and all the dogs (with the smiley Albert in tow ) are asleep on the duvet.
I look around the bedroom.
The window seat, is all pulled and marked where Meg bites at it when she sees a passing dog in the lane. The windows have the very attractive smeared and now dried spit marks from doggy faces and the skirting board below is covered in stray dog hairs and dust. By the door, in the hall there is a strange mark in the carpet from where George threw up a stolen meal of cat food and hen eggs, and the window ledge in the bathroom beyond, has a precise set of pawprints all over them after Albert stood in the coal scuttle and then escaped back into the garden.
When I fried Chris’ potato cakes this morning, the cat had a crafty sniff, lick and tap at them when my back was turned, and I am sick and tired of hand washing our “tasteful” scatter cushions, when they smell of overheated Welsh terrier.
Our immune systems must be as robust as a charging rhino!

The cottage, at times is a midden

I do miss those Sheffield days when for a short time we had a cleaner! She was a powerhouse Filipino woman called Eba, who hardly spoke English, was, we suspected a mail order bride and worked like a thing demented. She was a godsend! By the time she had knocked on the door and you had answered it, she had already brushed the yard and cleaned under the plant pots! I loved her!

The only thing that did worry me slightly about Eba was the fact that she pathologically hated dirt ! (She made Joan Crawford look like a pussycat) when she found a particularly nasty stain or mark ( I remember her special reaction to the mess she once found under the microwave!!)- she would mutter loudly under her breath

"dirty boys!!! dirty, dirty boys!!!"

I used to get so embarrassed I used to hide in the attic when when was in full flow!!

Eba where are you when we need you.!!

I am working tonight, and need to write some more handouts for the chicken course for tomorrow , but I think I will give the bedroom a good seeing to!......in the spirit of Eba!