The heading today is what my late m-in-law once said to me. All I can say is she was TOTALLY wrong. Particularly if she had ever seen the amount of work I put into trying to get this house clean and tidy before she came to stay - no mean feat when we first moved here as we lived in a building site on and off for years. When I had horses when we first moved here, I was still mucking out 5 horses when I was 8 months pregnant. (It made for a very swift labour as I was very fit).
I was laid up yesterday with some sort of 24 hour bug which made me incredibly tired (I had to go back to bed at lunchtime and fell into a very deep sleep for over an hour) and reduced my legs to chewed string, They just refused to hold me up. I had lots to do but knew I couldn't do any of it.
Still, today I have gone flat out from the word go. I have:
1. Stripped and changed the bed (with OH).
2. Got the stones out of and cooked up 8 lbs plums for the freezer.
3. Picked two jugs full of gooseberries (all the garden produced this year as we have young bushes) and topped and tailed and stewed up one lot.
4. Washed and polished the metal top of our Hergom stove, and polished all the brass bar around the top of it. My OH did the brasswork on the front, and I vacuumed all the cobwebs and dust from the inner bits of it.
5. Polished two old copper possers which were filthy with neglect (red face here).
6. Polished the brass lid of our big cast iron kettle and both huge Victorian copper cooking pans which decorate the top of the Hergom and we dry socks on (!)
7. Polished the two small old Victorian copper frying pans which also live near the Hergom.
8. Cleaned the sink.
9. Vacuumed the top hall, the bottom hall, the kitchen, the sitting room, the office and a bedroom (thoroughly).
10. Mopped the main hall floor, and then down the stairs and all along by the pantry.
11. Emptied 37 bottles of ancient and now undrinkable home brewed wine, and put all the bottles out for recycling.
12. Took 3 boxes of charity shop stuff in the car along with the other recycling.
13. Dusted the sitting room.
14. Put vast quantities of "stuff" away, either in the stables or in the Junk Room or up in my sewing room.
15. Finally cleared the kitchen table of detritis.
16. Got the chap out to give us a quote for clearing and cleaning guttering and windows. It won't be cheap, but the top blocked guttering is beyond our reach by ladder (safely anyway, we have done it very "unsafely" in the past and don't wish to repeat it).
17. Watered all my undercover plants.
That all took about 8 or 9 hours . . . Oh, I also cooked tea!
So, I have just about caught up with the jobs I should have done yesterday when I was busy being poorly. Onwards and upwards tomorrow, as we have guests on Friday and I want it ALL done by then. Attic tomorrow, and down in mum's . . .
Oh, and m-in-law - if you are looking down on me from Heaven - see, I really DO know the meaning of hard work.
well said I hope she heard you :-)
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ReplyDeleteWow what a work load you have !
I am cleaning the studio,
Taking care of The Square One (meds four times a day down from six)
Cooking chicken for their dinner and mine.
Put off looking for the new mattress till tomorrow
Contacting the pool man about the spa.
Talked to the gardeners about the clean up.
Stopping by the Post Office for the right size mailers.
Write two sympathy cards and a Birthday card.
Not much compared to you but a lot for me.
Many of us know what hard work is no matter what age we are,
or what it is we are doing.
You go girlfriend !
Take care.
cheers, parsnip
I am exhausted just reading about your work load! I am sure your m-in-law would be very impressed. Cheers
ReplyDeleteOh girl, you truly do know the meaning of hard work!
ReplyDeleteThis made me smile BB.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first met my husband (I had been a widow for a while and had also been retired) his mother was still alive. She had been a farmer's wife and had brought up six children, looked after various farm animals, become a prize winning cook and baker at various shows and an accomplished needlewoman. I had been a Head of Department in an Inner City Comprehensive School but she took one look at my hands and told m husband to be - well she has never done any work, Ican see by her handss!
Feel totally exhausted reading about your workload for the day!So sorry to read about your rose in the last post - I do hope it survives. What a mean thing for someone to do :(
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed with that lot of chores. Bet you felt proud and tired and satisfied. Glad to hear that the 24-hour bug has vacated and left you alone. Thanks for tha tphoto of the wall of blossoms-it's delightful to look at and I bet smells so good too.
ReplyDeleteLynda - the wall of blossoms smells AMAZING.
ReplyDeleteR. Robin - I feel guilty if I sit down with a book during the hours of daylight! Something about the Christian Work Ethic I presume!
Pat - oh dear - I can see you created a good first impression, but then Yorkshire folk are good at telling it as it is (late m-in-law was of Yorkshire stock too.)
Terra and Robin Mac - I think we can all work hard when we need to,.
Parsnip - that's a pretty good haul of chores in one day too. Hope the square one is better soon.
Dawn - me too, loud and clear!
Leaves me speechless all that work, all I can say don't overdo it, or you will be ill again!
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