SPRING CLEANING 39

This is a rare sight in our household - all three laundry tubs EMPTY! This signifies that I have been busy doing bowlfuls of laundry AND the weather has been fine enough to dry enough clothing to get more bowlfuls on the line til there are no more garments left to be washed. Usually the backlog of still-wet laundry hanging outdoors leaves no line free to continue til the baskets are empty.

We had some extremely strong gales of around 70mph over the Easter break and some of the front yard daffs got bent. I brought them indoors and placed them in the spare room at first - but then took them up to my room, as nobody would see them in the spare room. I think they look much better in the bedroom, where I can enjoy them - or could til they died off a week or so later.

The next task was begun the middle weekend of April - the fireplace. My late father had boarded it over and contacted the board, then rather messily patched it up - but it was bulging where the jackdaws who nest in our chimney had shifted soot and fallen debris down the chimney. My task was to remove said sooty mess and fix the board to make it look nice for the spare room the former bedsit/lounge will soon become.

This was the mess I had to deal with - and thinking it might take around 30-40 minutes to complete the task, I began 2 hours before taking my friend for a walk. I actually completed the task only 20-30 minutes before I had to leave the house and go to fetch her.