Spring Cleaning for Woodpeckers

Woo-hoo, it turned out to be spring after all, today, and I finally felt quite a bit better! Went out for coffee with a friend, H, this morning at the amazingly popular Black Books Cafe in Stroud ( you have to queue for a table at peak times), then headed off to cruise the charity shops. I got round 10 out of 12, and two second hand furniture stores, one of which was full of brown furniture and orange bobbly glass vases from the 70s being eyed up by hipster families. I felt faintly sick. There are unresolved issues around orange pimpled vases lurking in my past.

I popped into the Farmer's Market and ended up with a steamed ginger pudding and a Thai chicken satay. (The chicken and ginger diet continues: have I actually eaten anything else this week?) Fortified, I bussed home and set to work spring cleaning the cabin/enormous shed/garden room. It has more windows than a railway observation car (4 huge ones like the ones above, 2 panes in the door, and a smaller UPVC one that doesn't match anything!) but I reckoned that if I threw everything open and sang my way through the Great iPod Songbook, I could manage to hoover; wash; tidy; AND clean the windows!

There were dead plants and woodlice everywhere; spiders' webs; tripods; tools; cushions; jars of screws and nails; but, with a lot of singing and application of elbow grease, I got it all shipshape and Bristol fashion in time to have a G and T in there with CleanSteve at sunset, after we'd messed around taking pictures of each other's camera face! Bomble joined us, sitting on the low shelf by the window. Unfortunately CleanSteve is poorly now, and felt the cold as soon as the sun began to retreat, but at least I am well enough now to cook, and deal with Man Flu, if that's what he is getting.

Now I can see that I did not get round to tidying the big shelves; and when we start using the tools, etc, there will be further juggling required. But at least when the sun shines, as it did today, we will have somewhere to go that is half-in, half-out. And if I decide to do more writing...

The gin and tonic was a good 'un, because I continued to sing my way through the iPod playlist s as I cooked supper. I hope this massive high is a a natural reaction to feeling well again! I have also noted that I don't have enough rock music on my iPod, because in my opinion that is the best music to accompany serious cleaning tasks.

Window cleaning music