My spring cleaning progress...

I helped some friends move out a few weeks ago, and the horror of the experience (they had a lot of stuff, hadn't sorted it and didn't really start packing seriously until a couple of days before the move) has galvanised me into sorting out my stuff - there's no way I actually want everything I've got tucked away I thought to myself, and if I get rid of some of it, I might be able to get some of the stuff that I want to keep but which is lurking under furniture or just tripping me up in the wide open (hah!) spaces in my house....  How hard can it be?

Yeah right!

Probably a lot easier if I'd actually kept the house tidier in the first place.  And cleaner (my lovely cleaning lady remains awol as her husband has been ill for months - she's too good to lose so I'm waiting for her to come back and failing to keep on top of it myself).

Nevertheless, the living room is now sorted out because I've bought a stand for my bike, some boxes and shelving from Ikea and there's only stuff in there that I actually want to keep and will use.  But isn't quite finished because there's a hall table and an oak chest to go downstairs currently clogging up the window area, but there's not room downstairs yet. (My house is the bottom half of a converted Edwardian London terrace, I have 2 rooms upstairs and a room downstairs (which is also where the kitchen & bathroom is) - my bedroom is always upstairs, the other two rooms alternate between living room & work/dining room depending on how I'm feeling.  Right now, the living room is upstairs). I also need my neighbour to be around and in a helping frame of mind to move that furniture downstairs....

Until recently all this alcove below had in it was my sewing machine suitcase (it has wheels, I used to go on weekend courses, but then I stopped but am keeping it as it'll be very useful if I ever start that sort of thing again) with the cat carrier on top, and an occasional table with a lamp on. 

Now, it has all my large sewing/embroidery/coffee table books plus my magazines, plus my tax technical files from downstairs, as well as my writing slope box and an horrendously expensive lamp that I get nervous about people breaking....  Of course, I now have to find somewhere else for the occasional table and lamp to go, but it's progress of a sort!

No you're not seeing things, there are two rather battered lifesize cardboard pike from the 1930s nailed to my chimney breast (lifesize as in as tall as I am), I've got the nose for the bottom one and one day I'm going to have saved up enough cash to get them conserved and the nose put back on....

All well & good, great progress has been made, one room is sorted, I hoovered it and did final tidying today, all I need to do now is clear the others!  On realising the boilerman was due today, I decided to tackle the kitchen and cleaned the surfaces and the floor and sorted out the cleaning cupboard.  This was a bit of a task, because there wasn't quite enough floorspace for the original contents... Anyway some ruthless sorting later, I managed to shoehorn my fabric dyeing implements and flower vases into the cupboard (previously these had been made homeless now Ivor needs a cat litter tray) together with the useful cleaning products and half filled the wheelie bins with what was left and created a bag of stuff to go to the charity shop.  Marvellous progress! And the boilerman came early and gave the boiler the all clear (huge relief).  So a good morning all round!!

But then I cooked Colcannon (with leftover potatoes from a few weeks ago, and curly kale that didn't arrive in the best of condition from the Organic Veg box) and because I feel a bit tired and fed up now, I also cooked some biscuits (recipe in next post) - this annoyingly has effectively cluttered up the kitchen with washing up and I was a bit clumsy so more cleaning is required. Sigh, not progress after all then!

I'm really not sure I can be bothered to tidy up again now! But I suppose I'd better....