As anyone (or at least my husband) will tell you - I'm not the best housekeeper in the world.
In fact our home frequently looks like a crack team of America's Clumsiest Criminals have just rampaged through it, emptying every draw in every room, whilst cooking themselves a five course meal and playing catch with a toilet roll along the way.
Every so often I make a concerted effort to improve the situation, only to be back in our cesspit of despair 24 hours later. It's a thankless job.
So most mornings, having spent an hour making school lunches, sorting breakfasts, finding lost uniforms and then taking the kids to their schools, I return to the house and walk past the 48 unmatched pairs of shoes in the hall. I don't even pause by the kitchen door to take in last nights dirty dinner dishes lying under multiple bowls of half eaten cereal. I do not see the hardening weetabix tricking down the cupboards onto the floor like quick-setting cement. Instead I pick my way past the bottom third of the stairs that contain half a laundry basket, six Skylanders, four books and a lone slipper and I sit down at my desk.
For the next three hours I work at something I love until it's time to start on the three separate collections, the snacks, the homework, the after-school classes, the finding enough clean pans to cook the dinner and the general jostle of family life.
By the evening time I can either get the hoover and duster out or finally sit down to a bit of me time - some TV, a glass of wine, a bit of mucking about on my blog.
So you see my house will never be clean because there's too many other things that I choose to put first. It is a choice, and I'm happy with mine.
It's just a pity that the husband aint...
