At the end of this term I was very unwell; I managed to pick up the flu that was going around. I ended up with a mild case of pneumonia and having to take antibiotics for the first time in decades. It has left me feeling very tired and low-energy, so I decided to give myself an easy project this school holidays; de-cluttering the house. I have been feeling a bit like a hoarder lately; things are piling up and dust and dirt are creeping in. It is hard to keep things clean in a semi-open humpy with so many animals living inside. Things get dirty fast and it takes a lot of cleaning to get back to an acceptable level.

First up was the kitchen. I had thought that the kitchen just needed a good clean, not much to throw away, but I managed to collect four boxes of general stuff to go to a new home and five feed bags of rubbish (mostly out of date food and animal care stuff).

Before shot of one of the kitchen cupboards

Before shot of my coffee corner

After shot of the cupboard

After shot of the coffee corner. It may not look that different, but it feels different.

I cleaned out the inside of the cupboards, wiped over the outsides of the cupboards, cleaned the window, scrubbed the floor and vacuumed out the wall cavities. It didn’t look very different when I had finished, but it did feel clean and somehow…lighter.

It is hard to describe the feeling I get when I clean out a room; it is a mixture of relief and anticipation. I love to come into a recently cleaned room and know that everything is in it’s place. It took me three days to finish this room because I had to stop often to rest, but it was worth it. I now have a clean, fresh kitchen and I found my yogurt maker (I now have yogurt being made on the bench). Now onto the next room.