The spring has sprung, the grass is riz..

This is an old ditty, you may know it.....

The spring has sprung
The grass has riz
I wonder where the birdie is
The bird is on the wing
But thats absurd
I always thought the wing was on the bird.

Anyway, house sitting brings its own challenges regarding routine. When we are in our own home, we get into a routine.Once a year or so I generally had a good clean out in the house and chucked out the bits and pieces I had bought because the advertisements said I 'must have it' or stuff that I no longer used but kept, 'just in case'. But when you are house sitting you can't do that. It would hardly be a good look when the owners came home to find the linen cupboard half empty because you wanted a bit of a clean up.

One of the parts of my routine is a spring clean. I don't necessarily do this in spring, I have no set plan for this activity, but about once a year the urge starts up and I build up to a whopping great clean up. Well the urge started building about two weeks ago. I tried to push it down, distracting myself with mini cleans etc, but in the end it got the better of me.

Our current house sit is a longer term one, but even so, none of the stuff in this house is mine to 'tidy up' or 'clean out'. Nevertheless, I have given in to the urge and decided that a top to toe clean up was in order. So doing one room at a time, I've been having a wonderful time, washing, cleaning, moving furniture and getting in behind it, polishing the furniture, (theres quite a bit of very nice wooden furniture here), and generally giving the place a scrub up. 

There's nothing quite so nice for a housewife as walking through the house and looking at it all tidy and clean and polished. Of course, it doesn't last that long, it gets dusty again, its a perpetual cycle, but for now my spring cleaning urges have been satisfied.

One of the best things is that there are no children to mess things up just as you get it finished. I remember when, having all five at home,  these spring cleaning spurts would arrive, and I'd slog my guts out cleaning and tidying, and it lasted until about 4pm that afternoon. The children would be home from school, homework to be done, lunchboxes to be dumped on the bench, afternoon tea to be consumed, the neighbours kids over to play cricket in the back yard . . . you know the story.  Never mind, that's life I guess. The cycle of life.....clean it up...mess it up...clean it up....etc. etc. etc.