Here Comes Treble: Cleansing
"Cleansing of any kind invariably improves my mood. Washing my face and hands in cool water is always refreshing, as is a warm shower. Bathing leaves me rested and relaxed,'' writes a sparkling Isabel Bradley.
Ordinary housework, though, is not really my forte. When I have to, I do it very thoroughly indeed, moving furniture, lifting and shaking rugs, cleaning and polishing surfaces and everything on them and making sure dust and cobwebs do not escape my feather-duster. This type of work leaves me sweaty and irritable. No sooner is it done than it needs to be done again: one of us is bound to spill something or walk mud onto the floor, dust collects in the blink of an eye and inconsiderate spiders insist on spinning webs in corners within minutes. Luckily, for most of the year I have a domestic helper who ensures all this mindless work is done for me once a week, along with any ironing that is needed.
Between Christmas and New Year, Leon and I were in the mood for a long overdue cleaning spree. Our first target was the pantry, which extended to the kitchen cupboards. We rediscovered the contents of my printers’ trays: in the 70’s and 80’s people hung these on the walls in hallways, lounges and dining rooms and used them to display all sorts of miniature ornaments. My collection included some lovely a crystal-and-brass pieces, including a flute-case made of crystal with a miniature brass flute. These I extracted and placed in our display cabinet. The remaining nick-knacks were ruthlessly returned to the old ice-cream boxes where they’d slept since I moved in with Leon 14 and a half years ago.
We unearthed a surprising number of kitchen appliances which we’d inherited from various sources and never used, and a nasty brown dinner service that weighed a ton and was all the rage in 1979. There were tea-pots without lids, my grandmother’s cracked china tray and matching sweet box and an assortment of silver-plate candlesticks, bowls and cutlery. To this we added books that didn’t go to charity last time we cleaned out our book shelves. This all went into boxes and bags in the garage.
The cupboards and the pantry shelves were washed and re-stacked with those things we use regularly, leaving the kitchen feeling light and airy.
A couple of days later, we tackled the store-room. It had reached the stage when opening the door caused a landslide of ‘stuff’ into the passage, and was a much larger challenge than the pantry. Undaunted, we attacked it with gusto.
Lurking behind the vacuum cleaner, other household appliances and cushions for the outdoor furniture were bulging bags containing long-forgotten photo frames, handbags, packets of old clothes. We found four very heavy floor-to-ceiling-length curtains in red and gold stripes that I once thoroughly enjoyed but which Leon couldn’t bear to look at, and several extraordinarily rumpled sheer curtains and my mother’s collection of black and white photographs taken of theatre productions given by the Johannesburg Operatic and Dramatic Society during the 1940’s and ‘50’s. A couple of rolls of used carpet and two electric heaters that didn’t work were tucked away at the rear of the confined space.
Most of these items were ruthlessly added to the pile of rejects in the garage, shelves and floor were washed. We returned the carpets temporarily to the back of the store, and neatly stacked the appliances and Mom’s photos back on the shelves. The heaters went to Leon’s workshop, hopefully to be repaired in time for next winter.
What a difference it all made – the house felt as if a weight had been lifted from its shoulders. That is, if a house can be said to have shoulders…
Next, we turned our attention to the music room curtains. After our recent energising successes with the kitchen and store-room, however, we decided that we had to do something about them as they were in a dreadful state. By the time we’d washed them in the bath, done some necessary repairs and laboriously ironed them, they looked almost as good as new.
The goods that we’d cleared were piled into the garage. A week later we took them to a friend who runs a monthly second-hand market to raise funds for Hospice. She was as delighted to receive them as we were to be rid of them.
The feeling of virtue that we experienced after all this household cleansing extended, in my case, to a feeling of personal rejuvenation. Along with the unwanted goods, I seem to have thrown out the heavy emotions that weighed me down. They’ve blown away with the cleansing winds that poured through the living areas of our home.
I don’t often experience the energy and enthusiasm for clearing things, but the last couple of weeks have left me feeling energised and ready to face the challenges, hopefully enjoyable, that will inevitably present themselves to us in 2012.
Until next time…. ‘here comes Treble!’
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by Isabel Bradley
