THE DUST SETTLES

Today we began the enormous task of putting the house back together again, my God you have never seen such devastation except were there has been some kind of natural disaster. There are huge piles of books in the living room and they will probably still be there until next week as the book dealer cannot come for a few days. The bathroom when it reappeared was in urgent need of a good clean, progress in putting everything back in to my sons room was painfully slow and as the afternoon wore on and I was still unable to start cleaning I began to despair.

Later
The kitchen floor was filthy and had trodden in to the living room carpet all sorts of undesirable crud, honestly I could have wept. I came within an ace if reading the riot act to my two untidy men. My temper has not been sweetened by the fact that I have been sleeping for the past two nights with the underpants hamper right under my nose, most unsavoury. Amid the chaos I managed to bake some bread this morning,God knoweth how, and one of our neighbours popped in for breakfast which was nice, I have to say that today has been one of almost unremitting gloom for me. When you are unsteady on your feet the last thing you need are random piles of stuff appearing in odd places. Cooking dinner was out of the question so we had cooked meats and cheeses with some pate and a big salad.

Later still
The trouble with men is that they do not work with any method, they start one thing and then bog off to do something else, and in the end nothing gets done either properly or quickly. By three O'clock I had not ever started to tidy up as every room was still full of stuff and the vacuum cleaner was buried, at one point I thought it had been taken out with the rubbish. As you can tell I am not my normal happy self today,The boys sensing this keep showering me with compliments and promise all sorts of future compensation.... I shall believe it on the day it happens. So far I have kept my temper but I fear an explosion is imminent.

Even later
Suddenly the turning point came, everything began to fall in to place, with all my sons possessions cleared from the bedroom and the bath room I was at last able to clean away the dust and debris and at last with my sons room finished the upper storey at least looked habitable again and the smell of dust gone at last, with a wild hoorah I took the laundry baskets back to the bathroom. On my orders no food was to be eaten until the floors where visible had been hoovered and the kitchen and bathroom floors steamed, this proved to speed things up considerably! At odd hours during the day deliveries kept arriving, first the pork joints from Devon then a runner for the kitchen, a new clothes rail for one of the wardrobes and a parcel of togs for me which I have yet to open. We also put about a hundred videos on the free stuff stall and almost all of the were snapped up which was a relief to us all..

Much later
Just as we were almost finished an old friend appeared with a beautiful trout freshly caught which I cleaned and put in the freezer, he and another friend will be with us for breakfast on Monday, I think I shall make piklets again as every one loves them. I wish I could say the upheaval was over but that will not happen until the book buyer comes. Pray to the Gods it will be soon. My son has volunteered to forgo his Saturday game but I have not the heart to accept such a sacrifice, he is not the tidiest soul in the world but he is the kindest.