I live in a pretty part of the world - near enough to Glasgow that people can visit the city and a great base for visiting down the west coast of Scotland and into Burns' country. I also live in a fairly damp part of the world (it's why it's so green!) so while people love to come and stay with me, they generally love to do it all at the same time (I wouldn't neccessarily visit me in Febuary, either, but with the right clothes it's pretty even in the rain) so for the last two weekends, next weekend and the weekend two after that I have people coming to stay. Which means out of 5 possible weekends (when I usually do the bulk of my housework, shopping, bulk cooking, laundry and decluttering) I'm entertaining for 4 of them.
Visitors stay in the room where I usually dry my laundry.
Visitors require fed.
Visitors need cleanliness at least on the day of their arrival.
Visitors require the bedlinen on the spare bed to be clean.
Visitors are also delightful and splendid and they're my friends (else they wouldn't be staying in my house), but it is a wee bit frazzling.
In order to enjoy my friends (and not spend the entire time they're here looking like a stressed out dishrag) I had a deep-clean the weekend before the madness started and I'm very on top of "keeping things going" (even when they're there - they're my friends, they can see me straighten the sitting room and wipe it down before bed), and I need to make very, very careful use of the small amount of time I have in the evenings during the week.
So, they generally leave me on a tuesday, which is also the night I come home early before my Slimming World class and have maybe an hour to play with when it's still early enough to run the vacuum cleaner above my downstairs neighbour's head so I get home:
- strip the spare bed and empty the bin in the spare room
- stick the bedlinen and any towels they've used into the washing machine and add the detergent (I don't start it as I've been warned several times by the fire service not to run a washing machine in an empty house or overnight and I'm deeply paranoid about house fires anyway - that is a story for another time though)
- run the "feather" duster over the high points (basically I just waft it at the shelves, light fittings, skirting boards and doors, I don't move anything. It's slightly static so it's pretty good at picking things up)
- vacuum all the carpet and rugs.
Then it's time for my class and I'm exhausted. As soon as I get home I run the washing machine (because it's ready so I just have to press the button) and it's finished and ready for me to hang things up (I don't have a drier, I line dry - mostly inside due to the weather) by the time I've had dinner.
On wednesdays I have a regular game night with friends, so I can't start anything until after 9pm (by which point I really don't feel like doing anything!) so I try and get the maximum value out of where I'll be anyway:
- lay spare bed linen on spare bed. Hang up visitor bathtowel and put away any extra clean ones. Start my bath running.
- wipe down the bathroom whilst my bath is filling and gather any laundry I can find (bar my towel and bathmat!) and stick in the machine.
- Once the bath is full, run the machine.
- Hang up clean laundry to dry, put my towel and bathmat in the machine to run tommorrow (leave the door of the machine open).
I have the longest amount of time on thursday nights, but I'm usually also wiped out and need a little head space so I can be bright and breezy when my visitors arrive so I:
- Do a last sweep for laundry. Remember there are towels in the kitchen.
- Wipe down the kitchen
- sweep the hard floors
- spot wipe any of the hard floors that need it
- Make up the spare bed
Friday night is sometimes arrival night - in which case I run the clean and dry laudnry out of the spare room and put away the airers and feed my guests a take away - but if it's not then it's final polish night.
- Put away clean, dry laundry
- start batch cooking for anything needed over the weekend or early the next week
- Clean the bath (I run a scrubbie and soap around it whilst it's draining every time I have a bath, but it does need a proper clean now and again!)
- Catch up anything I've missed
- Move the airers into my bedroom
Before they arrive on the Saturday I'll strip my bed, wash the linens and hang up on the airers that are now in my room.
I love my friends, but I'm very much looking forward to my weekend off!