99% of preparation happens in my head. I think it through, I write it down, I plan exactly when I will do what I have to do, and then write another list, think it through again, even walk it through. And then I stop, because in my head it’s done.
However as soon as I start to enact my plans I realise that I have left everything to the last minute – again; I race around like the proverbial blue-arsed fly, bumping into people in the shops, dropping egg white, intended for the baking, on the floor; vacuuming the flex on the fairy lights and yet still believing that within an hour I will have the perfectly dressed table/cooked meal/party plan/hair washed and styled/nails polished and gleaming/ make up-ed to perfection and of course 1/2 a stone lighter and wearing a designer frock and high heels.
The reality – HA! I rush around like the proverbially turbo-charged blue arsed fly on speed; grabbing piles of paperwork that stay in the perpetual ‘to do’ list and dump them in the ‘den/office’; drag the duster round the very edge of all the shelves, shove ‘important things’ into such a ‘safe place’ that it take another 3 weeks to locate them (which reminds me I have left His passport in a very safe place, I remember that safe place and I have just put it back to it’s proper safe place – safely).
I become obsessed with the minutae of cleaning areas and places that I have no intention of guests seeing – the spare room floor (under the bed), the linen cupboard in the en-suite bathroom for crying out loud! And then here we are – 5 minutes to go, I haven’t showered, my nails are in tatters, I smudge my make-up, I realise my favourite dress has a mark over the left boob and my bunion is already declaring throbbingly that I can’t wear my new heels.
So tomorrow my dear friends J,G,L and F are coming for lunch. A themed ‘Sounds of the 80s’ lunch. The cake is baked, the food is bought, the floor is vacuumed. In my head we’re good to go.
Guess I really ought to put down this glass of wine, finish vacuuming ALL the floors,and washing them, the bathrooms, re-making the beds, dusting the top shelves of all the cupboards….
I need to wash my hair, fix my nails and channel my inner Chrissie Hynde.
Preparation – a poem
Dust, clean, vacuum and cook,
shop, bake, please don’t look
under the bed or behind the clock
the stoor back there will make you choke.
The proverbial swan is paddling fast,
the blue in the fly has just been arsed.
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