Kitchen Khaos

Can anyone please tell me why it is that as soon as the kitchen gets cleaned and tidied, once your back is turned it becomes a complete and utter mess?

I wanted to embark on my Christmas cleaning, which is actually not too urgent this year as we are not entertaining (thank goodness) but I seem to be taking one step forward and three back.

It is not being helped much as I am making hampers, wrapping presents, writing cards, getting things ready to post, as well as trying to do all the other things in the kitchen. So I decided to tackle the mess, starting from the far door! This started at 10am.

By lunchtime I had answered the telephone 4 times, had drunk 2 cups of coffee, watched a bit of cBeebies, looked at the post, eaten a banana, played with Aardvark and Rhino and given them their biscuits. I had sorted out the cookery books though!

In the afternoon I did fair better but I actually just managed to displace the mess to other areas of the house. In fact now the back stairs cannot be negotiated because there are boxes and bags blocking them, which is not good for fire safety.

Even after all this - interspersed with having to run round after the children, husband, cooking their dinner - I still am not much further forward. It made me wonder what my obsession was with cleaning the house before Christmas?

When we have family to stay, there are bedrooms to get ready, bedding to arrange, furniture to shift and the house to prepare to make my guests feel at home and comfortable. I think its only fair to give them a clean and tidy place to stay - plus its a bit of pride when people think you have a well-ordered and neat home.

But, this year, its just us (something we were quite adamant about), so what is the point of knocking myself out anymore than usual? Well I think I know - I usually do some form of house-husbandry everyday and I have no intention of doing any of this between Christmas Eve and 2nd January.

So I have resigned myself to doing a bit more work now, especially as I have my best friend coming to stay on the 3rd, and she will need somewhere to sleep. Mind you, I don't think she would mind camping out on the boxes and bags in the back stairway!