Today has been very stressful. I am thinking of having that phrase printed on a t-shirt actually, and when someone asks me how my day has been I can just unzip my cardigan and wave my logo enhanced bosom at them. I still have two good bras that keep me sturdy, so I’m sure Gok would approve.
As you know, our housing/emigration plans are in full flood thanks to the unflagging enthusiasm of my husband. Last week I dealt with renderers who drank Glenfield dry of tea, a painter who insisted on showing me his wonky ankle bones (where he fell 30 feet down from a ladder and things did not go well) at breakfast, complex scaffolding demands, and an estate agent who was taking photos as the paint was still drying. It was not the easiest of weeks when combined with the needs of work and school holidays and I did not do well on the patience and serenity fronts at all.
Yesterday the house went on the market. By lunch time we had two viewings booked already. This is very positive, except that the first one was at eight o’clock last night. I was in Staffordshire selling postcards to Russ Conway obsessed bacon chefs and not due to get home until seven. Jason’s sister was visiting for the day for the first time since Christmas, and he had the children to deal with as well. It was not ideal, and why it had to be then I really don’t know, but I did not volunteer, and I had run away, so I have no leg to stand on.
I had left the house tidy on Wednesday afternoon when we left for London, but not show house tidy by any stretch of the imagination. Our trials and tribulations on Friday meant that we did not get home until eight o’clock and did not get the children settled until half ten. We did nothing with the rest of our evening except sob and watch Poker Stars respectively. To say we were unprepared for a house viewing would be a gross understatement.
Jason is very, very good at being pro-active and he does many things superbly, but cleaning and tidying under pressure turns out not to be one of his skills. He rang me in the afternoon to ask me what the priorities should be in terms of showing a house. My answer was: ‘Clean the toilets, hoover the stairs, empty the bins and make sure there are no funny smells.’ He replied in the affirmative and I left him to it.
I fell in the door just after seven, starving, exhausted after twelve hours on my feet and only two hours sleep the night before, and looking forward to a cup of tea and a snooze in front of the television. I was greeted by a hysterical husband, filthy children and a house in various stages of being ‘decluttered’. It was madness.
I wolfed down a sandwich, and while everyone else tucked into Chinese takeaway I took a look around. The kitchen was virtually empty. The estate agent had suggested we declutter the surfaces. Jason had taken this literally, and the place looked like it had been comprehensively burgled. None of the bathrooms had been touched. The bin was full, and funky with it, and the stairs were covered with the footprints of several feverish hours of vigorous ‘putting things away’. I could have wept. And the terrible thing was that it was clear that they had all been working like dogs, so I couldn’t even go ‘rah rah rah,’ which was really what I wanted to do, a lot.
In less than an hour I cleaned three bathrooms, wiped all the surfaces in the kitchen and tidied Oscar’s bedroom. The others set to, and hoovered and emptied the bins. By eight o’clock it smelled better. Whether it looked better is anyone’s guess, frankly. We were all too buggered to care by that stage.
The people who turned up to look seemed distinctly unenthusiastic, which made all the effort seem that much more pointless.
We have another viewing tomorrow night at half past five. Today we have been trying to be more organised in our approach. This morning I mostly spent hunting down all the crucial kitchen implements that Jason had put away yesterday. I found the vegetable bouillon perched on some bubbles in the craft cupboard and half my cafetiere in the baking cupboard. The olive oil was rammed behind the saucepans, and so it went on. It was like a culinary treasure hunt, but not fun and with no prize for the winner.
I wanted to buy some flowers to make the kitchen seem less ransacked. I can’t because Jason put all the vases in storage yesterday. I shall think of something, possibly employing an old wellington and making a feature of it. I don’t really know at the moment, but I’m sure inspiration will strike.
Everything is taking longer because as well as hiding all our junk we have to sort out the cupboards we wish to hide it in, and decide what is going into storage. Because the boxes we store we might not see again until we go to Canada we have to be very careful what we store, and because we don’t want to spend several thousand pounds of shipping costs storing fourteen assorted bobble hats, three broken jelly sandals and a dog eared vest, we need to sort out everything into sensible piles for the tip and the charity shop as well.
It is a huge undertaking. Bits of it are quite satisfying, but most of it is annoying and hard work and something I really don’t want to do right now. Today I have cleared out the cupboard under the stairs, the craft cupboard (for those of you with children you will understand just what a hideous undertaking this is), the kitchen cupboards, the girl’s bedroom and Oscar’s room, including all cupboards, toys and clothes, and the airing cupboard. Then I collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Tomorrow I deal with the bathrooms and our bedroom. The study will have to wait. Most of my side is already tidy. Jason’s side is a tip of monstrous proportions and as well as teetering heaps of paperwork there are also boxes of things from his mother’s house that we cleared out last year, and that he has still to look at. I note that in all the chaos, where he has whipped us into a frenzy and galloped about, he has not so much as lifted one sheet of paper from this mass of stuff. Today he asked me what he could do that would be helpful. I suggested he tackle the study. He looked at me bleakly and said: ‘Later’ in tones that made it clear that the subject was not to be discussed further.
On Sunday evenings he goes out to play with his friends. I do not begrudge him this, particularly not after yesterday when he let me go without so much as a whimper. I did however, curse the air blue at half past five this evening when I went to shut the French windows to ensure the children did not run out into the garden to escape tea time, only to find that the door was stuck. I could not get it shut properly and it took twenty minutes of struggling to realise that I wasn’t going to get it shut properly because it is stiff and I am a weed. In all this time the children managed to flick bean juice all over the table and floor, which did not help my mood any.
Still, it is now midnight, the garage is full of black sacks which have to be deposited at various destinations, and the house looks much more sparse, which can be considered a good thing. The French windows are finally shut and I am beginning to thaw.
It is at times like this when I wonder why I volunteered. When I was about ten I flirted briefly with the idea of entering a convent and becoming a nun. Sometimes it seems entirely wise that I gave up that idea after about six months. At times like these I am not so sure.
I love the t-shirt idea, I’d like a variation on that for wearing to Doctors’ appointments! Maybe ‘bloody awful, that’s why I’m here’ would do…..
For viewing appointments, the smell of baking and/or fresh coffee cover a multitude of other potential odours. Fresh flowers are good, ditto a bowl of fruit on the kitchen bench. I usually leave a recipe book open at some spectacular photo on its stand on the bench too. Getting rid of the clutter is an absolute and actually I find it quite cathartic once I get started on it, but it is best done without the presence of small people or husbands who hoard. Then you eat takeaway food/cake/chocolate and collapse in a heap, leaving someone else to dispose of the accumulated black sacks, boxes (sealed firmly) etc. Yes, I have done this rather a lot of times. Unfortunately the last house we sold in the UK was the place we had lived the longest – almost 18 years – and boy was that hard work to clear out.
PS. Often those viewers who seem the least enthusiastic will be the ones to make an offer. Not necessarily the best offer but at least a starting point.
Once again, I think I am almost as exhausted as you just from reading all that you have done in the past couple of days! Wow! Hope the house sells quickly and for the price you’d like and Canada very soon sends word that yes, please, we’d like the Boos to come and live here (well, I am saying that, but apparently I have no official clout. Damn bureaucracy!).
Christ on a bike!
You poor thing! Seriously, the fact that you could stay awake to type all that (and are still married) after all that work is amazing. I was trying to get motivated to clear out some of our crap today, but reading your post has made me so tired I think I might need to take a little rest (i.e. read a novel after drinking coffee for 10 minutes until I fall asleep) first.
We moved 8 months ago from a tiny rental garden apartment to our first home (top floor of 2.5 bedroom 2-flat). The moving van only had to travel one mile south down the street, so we were not too motivated to actually get rid of stuff beforehand. Now we are paying the price. Plus I have all the things I had in storage at my dad’s house for “someday” when we got our own place. However, I have to admit that once I get going I kind of enjoy getting rid of stuff. I was holding onto a lot of things, thinking “someday I will have room for this desk in my living room/time to do the crafts in this magazine article/another fancy cocktail party to wear this dress to.” I even started getting rid of some of my books (something probably no one who knows me thought would ever happen), as we have a fantastic local public library and I can get most anything I want from there. Letting go of these ridiculous expectations is kind of liberating. It’s just that there’s so much stuff to get through! Plus getting my husband to go through his piles of papers is no picnic.
In your case, you have your own and 4 others’ possessions and interests to deal with, plus the thought of an overseas move with perhaps a move in-between. I can’t imagine how I would get through it–you’re a champ!
p.s. If you don’t have time to bake, an old realtor’s trick is to simmer half a lemon, a vanilla bean or a cinnamon stick in a small pot of water on the stove. This will not disguise any manky smells from the trash, but it supposedly makes people better able to imagine themselves “at home” in your house.
Ah yes-’decluttering’.We’re doing that too prior to getting new kitchen,bathroom,new floors,new staircase etc etc.My husband claims he absolutely needs all out of date manuals and university notes ‘because you never know…’Let’s run away together,Katy.We could stroke mismatched cups and balance roundy bowls on our heads.
Sharon
I like the recipe book idea. I will have to find one that doesn’t come complete with food stains and nibbled edges!
It’s looking better today, thank goodness.
Watchthatcheese
That would have been a more succinct version of the day, yes!
J
I am so impressed that you have got rid of books. It’s my fatal weakness. I think so far that I have put ten in the pile for the charity shop. Ten out of two thousand isn’t really going to cut it.
Jenny
I will be knotting my handkerchief anon.