That went better than expected.

Had the parents up for the weekend. This event is usually fairly fraught as my step-father has quite high standards when it comes to a house being spotless. And mine isn't. I could make lots of excuses as to why it isn't...and here are a few of them: It's an old property; we have 14ft ceilings; we have two dogs; no carpets to hide the dust and dog-hair, just waxed floorboards; 2ft underneath the floorboards is earth...creates dust. etc etc. So although I have what I feel are valid excuses for my flat not being spotless, they are, of course, not in the slightest bit valid and the main reason is that I'm just bone idle and hate housework with a passion. There's always something more important to do.



Don't get me wrong, we're not complete slobs living in a filthy hovel. I do just enough housework to keep the place ticking over and I do insist on a spotless toilet. I just don't seem to get round to doing the "extra" stuff, such as getting rid of the cobwebs high up in the ceilings or pulling out the bed and hoovering behind it, or cleaning the tops of the cupboards. Everything in our flat never seems to have a permanent place to live and so get moved around a lot without actually being put away. It is such things that my step-father always seems to spot and just has to mention. So these visits are preceded by a major spring clean and a certain amount of trepidation. One such visit had me in my bedroom in tears and vowing that he would never ever be welcome in my home again...he hated the music we played, the card games we played, the flat was a mess - there was dust on a pipe 14ft foot up a wall in OH's workshop.



However, he seems to be very relaxed and chilled out at the moment so the weekend passed with not one sarky comment - although I don't know what was said in private mind you! We had fun, played silly games, lots of nice music and my cooking was praised. Only two small things...I took the turkey out of the oven to rest, only to find just before serving that, contrary to all outward appearances,it wasn't actually cooked. Oh, and I made a sherry trifle and forgot to put the sherry in it. Cest la...I can cope with such things!