Changing housework style!

Impressed with that experigran one of mine is still in nappies and the older one only 4. He does love his toy Dyson though, so perhaps there is hope!

As long as the sinks, and loos are clean and everywhere fairly tidy and a quick hoover downstairs most days. I just fit the rest in when I feel like it or am not doing anything else. Nobody has complained yet and if they do, they know what my answer will be.

I'm training up the grandchildren! Of those that are not running their own homes, two have done all the vacuuming, but have now gone to Uni, the third is about to depart this year, so there is one more to go before starting on the great grandchildren. It works well!

#onlyyouknowthatmissis.

#whataslutiobviouslyam...

I still do Flylady' s swish and swipe in the bathroom every morning when I've finished my bath. But I can't always manage to shine my sink before I go to bed.

Sorry it should be www.flylady.net!

I have never felt I am good at housework. My dear Mum was and I wish I could be one of those people who make a clean and tidy house look effortless. Now I have more time, I am using the Flylady.com website. I don't get the emails as apparently there are many a day!!!! However it uses a series of zones which come round every five weeks and I find this useful for reminding me to dust under the bed or whatever. Sad maybe but I feel more organised

My house is tidy in the bits you can't see [inside wardrobes, drawers etc] but a complete mess where you can. I've always been like that. I've pinpointed major problems to stuff that the S.O. brings in [eg newspapers, which I leave lying around because I feel I should read them but then don't; then, when I go to throw them away I see an article that must be read so put it on one side where it stays for months]. And my office is full of racing form and old Racing Posts which need sorting into folders. I blame it on being a filing clerk in my youth, which means that nothing can be thrown away but must be organised into sections and kept forever. Once a filing clerk always a filing clerk, obsolete as we now are .

We bought a house with a huge (30ft x 9ft) partly brick built shed in the garden. DH's eyes lit up. It has since been converted into a work shop with light, heat and power points.

Why, therefore, are there furniture and appliance repair equipment - and the furniture and appliances on the dining table, packing materials and stock for his ebay business in the study and why will I be the one who returns to the shed the stuff he brought down last week and is now finished with?

My house would not look as it does now if I lived alone. Accommodating and putting up with other people's untidiness arrangements is a big part of sharing one's living space. It has always amazed me how some people manage, apparently, to force tidiness and cleanliness on the whole family. Mind you, maybe they just do more tidying up and cleaning than I do, or nag more. If so, they're welcome to it. I can't be arsed to deal with other people's mess unless it impinges on what I want to do. Then I ask them to clear it up or clear it myself. Otherwise, shrug. Who else has a bowstring-making jig on their sitting-room coffee table?

I love gardening, too, but have never heard of pteridology and bryology, Bags! (I have now - ta, Google) Some gardening is like housework to me, especially tidying away all the weeds I've plucked and branches I've pruned.

I hate housework, so paradoxically I keep my house tidy and relatively clean to avoid having to blitz it. I do it in fits and starts, so if I'm I'm the bathroom and notice something needs cleaning I do it then, telling myself that two minutes having a quick wipe round earns me two hours messing about on my iPad.

Today, I'll do nothing - I'm off out. Lunch with friends and grandaughter, bit of shopping, walk round aimlessly with my dog a couple of times, watch a bit of telly, then read in bed. I'll wash the few dishes I use tomorrow morning. Nice balance, I think

My house has dusty bits that have been dusty for more than four years. It particularly affects high book shelves. Not a problem. And when you want one of the books, you take it down and dust it. That's not a problem either.

Joan Bakewell's comment shows how much she knows about gardening . What a silly remark! Has she not heard of botany and pteridology and bryology, etc? Somewhat more fascinating than cleaning the looor vacuuming a floor, I find.

Silly man (Quentin Crisp)

Yes, I remember that well. But even I couldn't leave it that long...I don't think.

Remember Quentin Crisp's message to the housewives of Britain - "After four years the dust doesn't get any worse..."

Joan Bakewell recently said that gardening should be put in Room 101 because it's just like outdoor housework.

My housework resembles indoor gardening.

I am very lucky to have the luxury of having a cleaner 3 hours a week so I know the bathroom/toilets and kitchen have a 'good' clean then. She also vacuums all floors weekly and dusts upstairs/downstairs on alternate weeks. In between my DH cleans up after me & the visiting DGCs! I cook/shop/garden. I do 'blitzes' of cupboards/oven/windows as and when the mood/need take me! I iron only as a last resort or when the ironing pile (my stuff as DH does his own) is almost ceiling height!

The Yorkshire Shepherdess calls this attitude, which she also has because she has seven kids and nine hundred sheep (plus some other things) to look after, "not sweating the small stuff".

I'm from Yorkshire too originally.

Yes. My dust-laden skirting boards aren't a risk to health, so they can just wait...and wait

If it's on the floor and not smelly, it's not unhygienic. If it's on the bread board, it could be so I clean it off. I just apply common sense. Seems to work. What needs to be clean is clean, what doesn't 'need' to be clean might not be particularly at any particular time. It's not a dirty house, just not spotless like many I've seen, and there's always plenty of dust which I see and think "I should wipe that" and then I forget because something else actually interesting catches my attention. And the dust lives for another day doing not a scrap of harm to anyone or anything. Which means it's not unhygienic.

Interesting, bags; how can you be sure whether dirt is unhygienic or not?

So long as it's not unhygienic dirt, I don't care if things look a bit grubby or tatty from frequent use. As for tidy... DD2 describes our house as "organised chaos". What she means is that tidy isn't a word you'd apply, but organised is. Work that one out if you can!

The thing is, we do stuff... and it shows. Someone else said: "I like your house; there’s always something interesting to look at." I took that as a compliment.

I always remember Shirley Conran's advice that if a room looks tidy, no-one notices the dirt.
I do have a cleaner once a fortnight though.
I'd rather work in the garden.
For any non-gardening jobs like paying bills or replying to emails & letters I make a list and go through it.