Mirt.

Let me tell you about mirt, it's something that affects about half the population including me. It's spread by animals but more so by people, ironically mostly by those who are not affected by it. It's almost impossible to get rid of and if left does not clear on its own but even the smallest outbreak can spread rapidly requiring intensive treatment. Those who are not affected by it tend to be men or children, because if you haven't already worked it out, mirt is mess & dirt and the treatment is that Augean task known as housework. And what led my thoughts in this direction? Scroll back to this morning, having risen early I resisted the temptation to climb back into bed for a few hours sleep after doing my early morning jobs and instead decided to tidy the kitchen. After washing up my breakfast things (such a pleasure not to be faced with a pile of saucepans to do after Linas' cooking) I used the soapy water to wipe down the rayburn. That's a nightmare to keep clean as it is always hot and you can't use abraisives on the enamel surface. Having wiped the rayburn I thought I might as well take down the ornamental plates that sit above the rayburn and give them a wash. Then not wanting to waste that bowl of water I wiped over the wooden cupboard doors. The cupboards are quite high so I got a chair to do the job properly and wipe over all the way to the top and the cupboard lintel. Noticing some dust at the top of the cupboards I thought I'd do what I usually do, get out the hoover and use the nozzle thingy to suck up all the dust on top of the cupboards behind the lintel. I've changed hoovers and this one didn't reach so well so I thought I might first clear the worst of the dust with a damp cloth. This involved me standing up on the kitchen counters and contorting myself to see what was up there. It was YUK, not only plenty of dust but on the side of the kitchen over the hotplate the dust was mixed with a lot of grease!! A couple of hours and many buckets of hot soapy water (and that was after scraping off the worst) later the cupboard tops are sparkling clean. (I shall get some tin foil and line the tops of the cupboards to make cleaning simpler in future.) During that time I spent a lot of time thinking about housework and the concept of mirt and yes I did wonder exactly why I was cleaning the tops of the cupboards. This is something that no-one will ever see but I shall have the satisfaction of knowing it is clean and not a haven for germs or smells. I mostly get fed up with sorting out everyone else's mess because they really don't care. When Peter came downstairs and I told him about the cleaning I had been doing his reaction wasn't 'Yuck' or 'Poor you having to work so hard' or even 'Your poor back having to do all that climbing and twisting'. No it was simply 'Why? No one can see up there and we don't store anything up there' Typical mirt ignorer, it simply doesn't affect him until he loses something and then it must be because I've moved it. Having done more tidying up in the kitchen I headed out for a quiet afternoon in the garden. The morning's low cloud/rain had cleared and though still grey it was warm and dry. I gave myself the gentle task of dead heading some of the flowers while listening to the bees buzzing away in the lavender.
Then I had visitors. My neighbour's 6 year old son and 2 dogs. This is their new hound puppy, Sapphire, Active having gone back to the hunt kennels. The damp spots on the step are where Sapphire had been licking up some of the ants that were swarming on the step, then they would tickle her nose and she would be pawing at her face and sneezing before going back for more.

In the meantime Fred had climbed up on my stone wall,

to get to Elwen who was sitting on the roof hissing at him. Elwen and Patch's mother still lives over at the stables so perhaps Fred was just being friendly. Jack stayed a while helping me with my dead heading before wandering off with the dogs, or at least trying to, it always takes a while for both dogs to follow him. A gentle rain then set it so it was back indoors for some early blogging.