To procrastinate or not procrastinate.....

I hate housework.

I despise it. I loathe it with a vehemence, and if I can find some excuse to avoid it, I will. Some folk are obsessive about domestic chores. I too am obsessive about house cleaning: I am obsessed with NOT doing it!

My sprogs having flown the nest some time ago, and not having found Mr-Nobody’s-Perfect-But-He’ll-Do, I live alone, but since my daughter’s departure several months back, I have become ever lazier. It matters not to me that there are piles of laundry dotted around my bedroom, or that the cat hair has accumulated in sufficient quantities that I could knit an entire new moggy if I so desired.......

I am so laid-back I am nearly horizontal; so chilled-out that you could store cans of fizzy pop down my bra; so mellow that I am almost yellow...... Need I go on?

I have perfected the Art of Procrastination in much the same way as some people concentrate on improving their golf game. I am tickety-boo at making lists - oh, the endless lists! - of chores that need to be done, and the order in which they must be performed, but generally speaking, once the lists are made, I give myself a teensy pat on the back for having achieved that much, a cup of coffee and a couple of hours playing on the internet......And so it continues.

Deadlines for achieving targets are forever being set, I half-heartedly make a start, then get distracted by the silliest of things, such as finding a box of my kids’ old school reports and sitting down to read how great they were at bunking off, but that they must do better at Food Technology, or whatever they call cooking these days..... Old photos are the worst, and I sit misty-eyed over pictures of chubby-cheeked infants, trying to reconcile them with the two lanky beanpoles that call me Mum today.

As I sit here adding to my utterly pointless blog, I realise that I am doing it again. Having prepared my spare room for the arrival of an Honoured Guest tomorrow, I am now rewarding myself with another stint on the computer....... Mental Cat however, is trying to tell me that Something In The Kitchen requires my immediate attention by scratching on the door; I suspect that Something may have grown legs and levered itself out of my fridge to hungrily await my tentative entrance into the Kitchen from Hell. I peer cautiously round the door at the ominous piles of pots and pans teetering precariously, awaiting their turn in the sink, but apart from clearing a small space in which to lodge my coffee mug in between refills, I ignore the call to domestic arms, and evacuate as fast as possible, closing the door firmly on the horrors within. Takeaway sounds a good idea....

Alas, with the time between now and the arrival of Honoured Guest dwindling fast, I fear I must roll up my sleeves, gird my loins and grit my teeth in order to tackle the last of my dreaded chores............ Well, maybe after I’ve fortified myself with another cup of coffee........................