I plump up everything in sight from the cushions to my husband, dare all intimate family members to touch the clean towels in the bathroom at their peril and dash in all directions with last-minute dabs of furniture cream. The house and I wear a glazed look.
‘Oh Lor, look at that huge speck of dust,’ I keep gasping to myself, as I flop down with a last-minute relaxer on the rocks. I think perhaps I have made the mixture a bit too relaxing, because I keep on going deaf. ‘It’s nerves’, my mother is prone to say in a remote nasal voice, when she goes deaf under similar conditions of stress. Soon now, assorted guests will start arriving for a pre-Christmas snifter, and I really must take a few deep breaths and prepare to be the warm, welcoming hostess.
But the moment I sit back and declench myself, I notice the smudge on the banisters or the streak on the window. Windows are perhaps my greatest house-cleaning bête noire. No matter which side I am polishing on, the other side shows up in great swathes of grey smear. On my way to the banisters with a sponge, a tea splash on the hall radiator catches my eye. I have long since given up wondering about such mysteries as why tea gets splashed on hall radiators. Once one has a growing family, anything is liable to get splashed anywhere. By now deeply involved in sponging down radiators, I find a sock behind one of them. Oh good, that makes up another pair. Is your life strewn with odd socks?
I am now soaping my way along the hall skirting board and am reminded of the time we stayed with friends in their caravan. Eager to please, while they were out, I wiped the wall behind the cooker. It came up gleaming, but left a grey tide mark where I’d stopped wiping. So I cleaned a bit more wall. And a bit more. The ceiling was moulded all of a piece with the walls, The corners curved continuously. Nowhere could I decently come to a halt. I washed every inch of that van that day. I had to, once I’d started.
Reluctantly, I throw in my sponge and take a last quick stroll around the living room. This year, our Christmas decorations are based on a fairly simple snowflake theme. How I envy those who have a natural flair for decorating, then later un-decorating, their homes. Almost Midas-like transformations are achieved in half an hour with just one can of gold spray, a few twigs and some jam jars. Or they create instant Eastern splendour with nothing more exotic than dim lighting and little twirls of cooking foil. Then, when the festivities are over, they skip around with a carefree laugh and a large paper bag and, within a twinkling, their living rooms are back to Habitat or old dog-eared fawn, as the case may be.
Our own living room has acquired a tiny dash of unexpected elegance with a white drinks cabinet, our Christmas present to the house. With the drinks in the bottom and our punch bowl on the top, it looks suitably festive. The only drawback is that the shelves in between them house a motley collection of drinking vessels, most of which came to us via petrol vouchers. In fact, the purchase of petrol accounts for quite a few of our household objects. The problem is that we rarely manage to collect complete sets of anything, because so many of the coupons are come by on distant journeys. If we ever stop at that garage in Somerset again, we might manage a second sundae glass. We have two amber tumblers gathered in Cornwall, a sherry glass from Devon, three vintage car table mats from Hampshire and 14 turquoise-blue whisky tumblers from our local garage.
‘I must remember to tell David to give that gilt-rimmed glass with the vine leaves painted on the side to me,’ I keep thinking. It is the one we use when anyone needs a TCP gargle and unexpected astringency still lurks in its depths.
‘The cat, quick, where’s the cat?’ I scream. He’s had a funny tummy lately, and I don’t want any last-minute nastiness. Nor little rodent offerings. My mother’s cat – a pampered creature – is prone to stroll in and offer her guests his latest catch. ‘During this past fortnight,’ she sighs, ‘he’s turned up with one small rat, three mice, a grass snake and a newt.’ ‘A newt! I say, stopping in my tracks. ‘Oh yes’, she says. ‘I get offered quite a lot of live goldfish, too, from Mrs A’s pond two doors up.’ ‘Whatever do you do?’ I ask. ‘Oh, I just lob them over the fence into Mrs B’s pond. It’s nearer.’
So now the cat is out, the punch is stirred, the cobwebs are at bay, and a car is drawing up outside. ‘Quick, they’re here’, we cry, straightening our shoulders and taking a last deep breath. ‘Hello my dears. How lovely to see you. Whoops, mind the mistletoe!’
To hell with dust and smudges. Let’s all relax and have a really super Christmas!