Housework - Squeaky Clean, Not Quite

 

Housework, that never-ending project that always starts with good intentions, but there are so many distractions and a complete lack of interest. That’s just me, obviously. Some people (other women) can’t rest until everything sparkles, nothing is out of place and a mixed fragrance of polish, disinfectant and Shake’n’Vac fill the air, a little diluted by the open windows. This is the opposite of me. I once saw a quote on a fridge magnet or something, along the lines of “Boring women have tidy houses”. With that in mind, I can promise you I am not boring. My house isn’t a tip, not exactly, but looking around, there are areas of ‘a work in progress’, things just started or not quite finished. It is the multi-tasking that does it. For example, the laundry can be happening while I’m doing something else. A loaded washing machine, switched on, looks after itself. How helpful it might be to have the magical finger clicking skills of Mary Poppins when the grandchildren have been and left everything out.

One evening, over Christmas, we had rain seeping in through the lounge bay window, dripping from the blinds on to the sill. It wasn’t much, just an annoying drip, with no obvious point of entry. I had to squeeze myself behind the Christmas tree to place a folded towel to soak up the water and silence the drip. It had rained constantly for days, so there must be a weak spot somewhere. We never found it, inside or out, and it hasn’t happened since. Watch this space. We noticed loose wallpaper, hidden by furniture, needing further investigation after Christmas, and when I had recovered from whatever virus plagued me for about a week.

The time came. The tree and everything festive, removed, boxed and returned to the attic. Spring cleaning can commence, but first, the wall needs checking. It was simple enough, remove the contents of the small bookcase, move bookcase out of the way – note to self for next time, the shelves are not fixed – I squeal in pain, but mind my language because I’m a lady. Examine the wall. The wallpaper has come off because the plaster is crumbling. A slight tap and lots of powdery plaster comes away building a pyramid shape on the edge of the carpet. All is dry, bone dry. A few spoken thoughts, then dustpan and brush followed by the vacuum cleaner. There’s nowhere else for the bookcase and contents to go, so it is put back to where it was. The post-Christmas cleaning and tidying continued, until I found something more appealing to do. Someone who knows about walls and plaster crumbling has been sent for. This might mean that the purchase of new chairs has to wait.

Housework is summed up perfectly in this poem by Pam Ayres, followed by one of mine,

Dust If You Must

Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed,
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there’s not much time,
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb,
Music to hear and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world’s out there,
With the sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it’s not kind.
And when you go – and go you must –
You yourself will make more dust.

                                                            Pam Ayres

I’m With These 2018 Heroes

The kitchen floor needs mopping
And the beds are left unmade
But I’m not doing housework
While there’s matches being played.

The perfect football pitches,
Neatly mowed and lush and green,
Ready for the world’s finest
To give us the best we’ve seen.

So bring it on, DeBruyne,
Ronaldo and Messi, too.
Fellaini and Suarez
I’ll be watching all of you.

A huge shout out for England,
For Harry Kane and the boys,
I’ve taught my grandkids to cheer
And to fill my house with noise.

Fav’rites Rashford and Lingard,
The skilful Eric Dier,
I’m loving every moment,
Applauding Harry Macguire.

The crumbs stay on the carpet
While the football frenzy flows
And the pots wait in the sink
‘Til the final whistle blows.

Pamela Winning 2018 (edited 2024)

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Wallpaper - all wrapped up.

The earliest know fragment of European wallpaper that still exists today was found on the beams of the Lodge of Christ's College, Cambridge and dates from 1509.  It is an Italian inspired woodcut pomegranate design printed on the back of a proclamation issued by Henry VIII and attributed to Hugo Goes, of York.

The earliest surviving printed wallpapers used in households in England are block printed designs in black, sometimes with some additional stencilled patches of colour, representing heraldic designs, or sometimes with damask or brocade type designs, dating from the 16th Century. Other wallpapers carried designs taken from tapestries or woodcuts. In the 18th Century designs with acanthus, pineapples or other motifs taken from classical architecture were used to complement Palladian interiors and also the rich were able to buy hand painted scenic wallpapers imported from China. Designs popular during the Regency period featured fantasy architecture, Gothic ruins and Chinoiserie.

The main method used to produce wallpapers until well into the nineteenth century was Block printing which gave a very high quality product. The size of pattern repeat was limited to the width of the paper and the weight of wood block that the printer could work with. The wallpaper was made up of 12 sheets of hand made paper pasted together to make strips long enough to go from the top to the bottom of the wall. Usually a blank margin was left along both edges of the paper to protect the paper from damage during transportation, which was trimmed off before the paper was hung.

In the Victorian era, wallpapers and wallcoverings became possibly the most important element to interior decoration as they became accessible for the majority of comfortably off householders due to their wide range of designs and varying methods of production so that both the higher and cheaper end of the market could be satisfied at a more reasonable cost. This was due to the introduction of mass production techniques and the repeal in 1836 of the wallpaper tax that had existed for the previous 124 years. The wallpaper tax was introduced during the reign of Queen Anne and although this could be bypassed by purchasing untaxed plain paper and having it hand stenciled, it was still a major obstacle to the widespread usage of wallpaper by everyone but the wealthy.

In the 19th century paper began to be made in continuous rolls first by Louis Robert in France in 1798 and then in England by Fourdrinier who patented a machine that could make paper to any length in 1807. It was not until the Excise Office lifted its ban on the use of continuous paper for printing wallpaper in 1830 that this invention could start to be properly exploited.

In 1839 Harold Potter, the owner of a wallpaper mill in Lancashire patented a 4 colour roller printing machine for wallpaper that could print 400 rolls per day. This machine was inspired by copper rollers used in the textile industry for printing chintz but for wallpaper printing it used a raised rather than an engraved pattern. Oil based inks were invented to work with this that would flow smoothly onto the rollers and coat the paper evenly. These early copper rollers were relatively small and so could not print large patterns so these new processes heavily influenced pattern design with most papers having small scale designs. On more expensive papers a larger hand block design was sometimes overprinted onto the small pattern.

As a child, I loved to cover my school text books with the wallpaper from sample books left by the decorators. Discovering a wallpaper covered book when clearing my elderly aunt's home inspired today's poem.

 

 

Clearance
It’s a ramshackle house:

A curiosity-brimmed casket,
over-flowing with the remnants
of a solitary life.

A doll in crochet dress

adorns the toilet roll.
In a cabinet, the Old Roses tea-set
and a clutch of silver spoons

The bedroom drawers bulge

with stiff boned corsets of your trade.
Bags of wool and knitting needles
speak of quiet days.

Here is nothing of real value:

Nothing worthy of note.  
A pantry laden with out of date tins:
cling peaches and evaporated milk.

Shrouded by the dust of lonely years

in a corner of a shelf,
a book lies, under cover of
faded floral wallpaper.

A hand-written inscription

screams loudly, “This is it!”
so I expose the yellowed pages
to the flush of oxidising air.

Thumbed at the corners,
with pages often read
and disguised beneath the cover
‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’.


Thank you for reading. Adele

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Wallpaper - Let's Keep It Dry

My impaired vision cannot cope with brightly coloured carpets or patterned wallpaper, so our house is very plain in neutral colours. The busy, lived-in look or clutter, if you like, keeps it interesting and homely. A small wall between the kitchen and the back room needed something.

 I’ve avoided putting any pictures on that particular wall since one of my cross-stitch artworks was almost ruined when the bathroom wash basin overflowed directly above. Water streamed down the wall and trickled from the light-fitting. Our daughter was the culprit, a young child at the time. We removed the plugs from every sink and basin and implemented an ‘ask if you need it’ policy which remained in place until the children had grown up. All our replaced sinks have built in plugs now. I will keep a close watch on our grandchildren.

We decided to have wallpaper, just on that small area. I liked the idea of something bright, jazzy and loud, to make a feature of it. My eyes would be fine, after all, it’s only one, very small wall. Huge, red poppies interlaced with pale green leaves on a white background looked stunning and I loved it. All visitors remarked on how nice it was and I felt very house-proud, just for that wall. No one seemed to notice that it wasn’t sticking properly just above the skirting board where I think we had been running out of paste. The enjoyment turned out to be short lived.

At the front of the house, a damp patch seemed to be getting bigger. It was between the stairs and the front door and dried out when the central heating was on but always came back. We had checked for leaks and unblocked the airbrick, but the damp area persisted. We called the guys in. It was bad news. We needed a new damp core all along the outside wall from the front door to the beginning of the kitchen extension, which was unaffected. It had to be done, so it was a sad goodbye to the lovely wallpaper but that was nothing compared to the dismantling of fitted cupboards and the walls taken back to the brickwork. It was easier for our builders to replace the downstairs loo and basin with new ones, rather than trying to salvage anything. Crumbled plaster and smashed tiles. What a mess, but soon sorted.

This is where one job leads to another. The rest of the hall and the stairs and landing had to be prepared for redecorating.  Year in and year out, we had painted the walls over the same wallpaper. It was as thick as cardboard and hard work to get off, even with a couple of steamers, but to see the various pale shades we thought were nice at the time was amusing. I don’t remember ever choosing a wishy-washy pink, but there it was and Regency Cream had quickly turned yellow. The mushroomy off-white was a mistake, magnolia would have been better.   

Eventually, everywhere was painted white on to the newly skimmed plaster and that is how it has stayed.

We papered the feature wall with another large, floral pattern, which isn’t as good as the original, but it would do. Unfortunately, we had another flood in the bathroom, nothing to do with children and nothing that could have been prevented. Once again, the only wallpapered wall is the casualty. I’m glad we have a reliable plumber. It has dried out leaving wrinkles, bubbles and a few streaky marks. For now it can stay like that. I can’t see the damage as well as everyone else can.

 

I found this poem. It reminded me of the memories we shared when we tackled the hall.

 

 

Wallpaper Torn

 

paint revealed by wallpaper torn,
layers of peeling; the
faded adorn—a story of life.

joy, of accomplishment and
new beginnings.
children born, playing,
growing up—growing old.
past scars distant
memories; misplaced, obliterated—
by time reduced to dust.

a home
buried beneath the earth,
its walls no more.
the vessel shattered, decaying
stories lost, forgotten,
the curse of mankind’s
living.

 

Shaun Meehan, Ontario 2015

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

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