It rained hard, and the cats’ toilet on the balcony got soaked.
So they peed in the kitchen, right in the corner. Which did not smell good, obviously.
And then my husband had to go and mend the telescope this morning, so I was on my own with it.
Simply shoving a mop into the offending corner didn’t do much good, so I dragged the table out of the way, shifted the stuff that goes under the corner bench and the vase of flowers on top of it, and then dragged out the corner bench itself. Then I could get the mop in there properly, and it helped – some.
Since it’s such a pain to get the bench out, I hadn’t done it for ages, and there was a lovely collection of cobwebs behind there. Of course it was only common sense to sort them out while I could get at it all. Ditto the dust rats round the cables for the hi-fi.
But the smell still hadn’t gone, and one of the bench’s feet was an ominous damp shade.
So I emptied the storage space under the seats, tipped the bench on end, and set about the stain with hot water and bleach, followed by cleaning the inside of the storage space, which had collected breadcrumbs and cobwebs.
As I was waiting for it to dry, I had a lovely view of the greasy mark on the wall just above the bench height. I knew exactly where to find the paint, and the furniture was already shifted out of the way, wasn’t it? So I changed into my oldest clothes, and dug out the paint and paintbrush, took the pictures off the wall and painted all the marks that wouldn’t come off with hot soapy water.
Of course the dirtiest place was round the light switch, and it would have been daft to leave it mucky when I’d got that far. But that meant shifting the CD shelves, with all the loose CDs on top.
At that point the phone rang. Did I want to join a family party for lunch?
It sounded a heck of a lot more fun than what I was doing, but I couldn’t abandon the job half way, and I certainly couldn’t go anywhere without a shower, not the way I smelled.
The room was still a bit whiffy, so I attacked the foot of the bench with a fresh lot of hot soapy water and bleach while the wall dried. Then I cleaned the pictures and hung them back on the walls. Put the bench back, with all the things inside it and under it, cleaning each bit as it went back.
And dammit, there was still a smell. So I took all the stuff out again, and managed to slide a shallow dish under the offending stinky foot and fill it with bleach.
Wouldn’t you know it, my husband came home at that point. If I didn’t know him better, I’d have thought he’d timed it on purpose, except that he couldn’t have known that I’d just finished.
I was about to get a much-needed shower, when my son disappeared into the bathroom. I waited, hoping it was only me smelling, not the blasted bench. The kitchen was still too messy to cook in, even though I was starving.
And when I finally got into the shower, I go rid of the smell. So I went to the party and ate at 4pm, feeling like Cinderella escaping the ugly sisters.
