Skip to main content

Shark!!

 I am expecting the arrival of a shark this afternoon. Not one of these…



Where would I put it for a start? We no longer have a bath and I’m pretty certain it wouldn’t be happy living in a walk-in shower. There is a fairly substantial collection of rainwater at the top of the garden at the moment but come Summer time the ground will be rock hard and dry and all that will be available for shark purposes will be a collection of seven water butts. And then it’ll have to do battle with all the mosquitoes therein, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, let alone a shark. And all those teeth? Imagine the toothpaste it’d go through. Best not, I think. No, the shark of which I speak and await with eager anticipation is one of these…
A Shark Hydrovac Hard Floor Cleaner! Oh yes! Goodbye, Mr Sloshy Mop ‘n’ Bucket. Fare thee well, Mrs Hands and Knees Scrubber. I have finally succumbed to the lure of the power cleaner for all my hard floor cleaning needs, which are great on account of the entire ground floor of Damson Cottage being covered in tiles and wood. 

The problem, you see, isn’t so much the hard floors themselves. I love my kitchen limestone floor. And my wooden floors in the living and dining rooms are an aesthetic delight. They are easy to sweep and clean, especially when one shares a home with a moulty, furball ikky cat and a mucky pup dog. And a mucky pup Lord of the Manor, come to that. No, the problem is that since we acquired the mucky pup dog it’s become harder to keep on top of all the MESS she drags inside with her on a pretty much daily basis. My knees are beginning to protest. This is one of the reasons Nell the Poo will be my first and last experience as a puppy parent. Never again. Cats for me, all the way. 

Anyway, she is here and that’s that. And now I give photographic evidence, m’lud, in defence of my purchase of a Shark. 

Exhibit Number One: 

Nell the Poo on a walk this Wednesday just gone, with Lord Malarkey. Look at the state of her. And the insolence! 

Exhibit Number Two:

Nell the Poo on a walk this morning, again with Lord Malarkey. You’ll notice, m’lud, there is a common denominator in this case i.e Lord Malarkey. I shan’t publish a photo of the shower, post-Nell clean up. It would likely offend the house-proud amongst you, including me. 

I rest my case. I did say to Andy that I wondered if a Shark Hydrovac would work on Nell and, indeed, him. He laughed. I think he thought I was joking…

Yesterday, then, I hit the purchase button on a heavy duty floor cleaner. It was going to be delivered on Sunday but - ta-dah! - it is arriving today, which is excellent service, especially as I didn’t pay for delivery charges for it to arrive sooner than Sunday. I have been issued a one-time password to relate to the delivery driver when it arrives, as an added layer of security, I suppose. Do people set about stealing Sharks these days? Is there a black market for intercepted cleaning equipment? Who knows? All it shows, I suppose, is that the world is filling up with desperado thieving bastards. Sad. 

Anyhoo, very much looking forward to saying, ‘Eurgh!’ in disgust as the Shark lifts ingrained dirt from my hard surfaces and I get to slosh the mucky evidence down the drains. I am also toying with the purchase of one of those shower and condensation water collection gadgets. My friend has one for her shower and windows and I’ve tried it out. Instant clean and dry surfaces which, for someone who is averse to wet and muck, is magic! 


Comments

Anonymous said…
House proud? I have given up. It’s down right impossible. I just exist. It’s Friday night and I’m knackered. Dog hairs you say? Where??!
KJ
1 February 2025 at 01:41
Denise said…
It’s a blessing that Nell doesn’t shed her fur, on account of her being woolly, KJ, but my goodness does she bring a load of other muck into the house to spread around. I am hoping for glistening floors once again.
1 February 2025 at 08:40
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Frosted Dawn Enigma

The decorators are in at the moment. Stairs and landing. Given my previous history of 'Hoo Ha Occurring on Stairs ' - reference the Trapped Under the Sofa Incident and the Foot Wedged Between Bookcase and Stair Rise Debacle - I thought it wise to pay for professionals to decorate the stairs and landing rather than get myself in a mix with ladder and plank combinations and achieve the Magic Three of staircase accidents. The decorators are a father and son combo who go by the  names of Craig and David. This automatically causes me entertainment. 'Came in on a Monday, prepped, filled and undercoated, back on Thursday, first top coating, by Friday finishing touches...' Okay, not as frisky or well-scanned as the original song, but you get where I'm coming from. Anyway, before they started the job Craig asked what colour I wanted for the walls. 'Same colour as the downstairs walls, please,' said I. 'Dulux Frosted Dawn.' And then white for ...
2 comments
Read more

Day 1 - Decisions Are Made Beyond the Author's Control.

‘Well,’ I say, looking at the expectant faces gathered around the huge table in the Great Dining Hall of Much Malarkey Manor, ‘I didn’t think it was going to happen this year, but it is!’ There is a sharp intake of breath as everyone wonders of what I speak. I’ve been muttering about all sorts recently, and I’m not talking liquorice here either.   ‘The Much Malarkey Manor Annual and Traditional Christmas Story!’ I say, and wait for the expulsed air of relief to settle before I continue. ‘I thought we had done it all. I thought we had covered every Christmas story there was. I’ve been wracking my brains for a full two months now, trying to come up with something we haven’t done before and then it hit me! We haven’t done a version of one of the Great Christmas Films of Yore!’ ‘Your what?’ says Mrs Slocombe, who is more interested in the selection of pastries I have brought to this breakfast meeting, because that is what one does, isn’t it? Eat pastries at breakfast...
8 comments
Read more

Sun Puddles

A few weeks ago, I met up with a dear friend for a meditation and healing afternoon, both of us being light workers on the spirit pathway. It did me good to re-engage in a bit of focused energy channelling (because I have let my practice slip somewhat) and during the afternoon the words ‘sun puddles’ popped into my head.  Now, I know this wasn’t my human brain thinking these words because I have never heard the phrase before; when I arrived home, I looked it up and said to myself, ‘Aaah, you mean sun spots!’ This is a sun puddle... ...there! That thing that Flora is lying on. No, not the sofa - the warm patch of sunshine on the sofa. Here are Flora and Bambino sharing a sun puddle... This proves that no matter how much they scrap with each other and try to denude each other of fur all over my rugs, they secretly share a mutual and fond admiration. I think. And here is Bambino on a sun puddle that has come to rest on my legs... It’s his casual, ‘I’m so cool’ pose. Metaphorically coo...
3 comments
Read more