I’m thinking of writing a new book. It’s going to be called ‘102 Reasons Why I should Never Have Moved Out Of My Mum’s Gaff’ – by Cara Jasmine Bradley.
I don’t even know where to start, if I’m honest. Today has been a nightmare, of diabolical proportions.
It all started when I was gently awoken by the rare September sunshine beaming through the bedroom windows... I mean, it was quite literally beaming – we have no curtains.
Yawning, I rolled over to grab my phone and check the time, presuming that it was at least nine O’clock.
Twenty five to six. On a Sunday morning.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for a bit of sun, but there’s a time and a place, and the time is not twenty five to six, and the place is not a curtain-less abode.
My mood had turned sour already, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to drift back off. So I spent the next hour and a half moodily glaring at the sun, before I was eventually beaten by insomnia. I opted to get up and clean the bathroom.
It went quite well actually, considering as I have never claimed to be a domestic goddess.
Or, should I say, it was going well, until I put a bath bomb down the toilet...
I don’t know about you, but I seem to acquire a puzzling number of bath bombs every Christmas, which I admittedly never use, henceforth meaning I have an irritating stash of around 112 in my bathroom cabinet.
After I had poured bleach, Cif and anti-bacterial [apple orchard flavoured] spray down the plughole, my eyes felt as though they might be bleeding, what with the chemical fumes pretty much hot boxing the bathroom. My solution to this was to kill two birds with one stone: get the bathroom smelling pretty and less like a chemical plant, all the while finally whittling down my collection of pointless bath bombs!
I carefully selected the bath bomb shaped like a snowman, snapped his head off, and chucked it absently down the loo. I flushed the chain and turned around to dispose of his body down the plughole.
Suddenly, I heard a faint bubbling sound coming from behind me...
Whipping round, I was greeted by the site of an actual monster coming out of the toilet!! It was white and foamy, and I could swear by the fact that it had a carrot for a nose...
The bubbly mess was fast growing and steadily making its way out of the toilet, and down the basin.
“Jo-shhhhh?” I called uncertainly.
“What?” Came the already unimpressed reply from the bedroom next door.
“Erm... I think I’ve done something silly...”
There was a pause. “How much is it going to cost us?”
“HAHAHAHA!!” I laughed shrilly, as the Bubble Monster lapped at my feet. “Nothing! It won’t us anything... I don’t think, anyway!”
After that catastrophe, I was banished to a six hour painting duty, which was harrowingly tedious. There are only so many skirting boards you can paint before you genuinely consider training the hamster to do it for you (and he could, too. They're cleverer than you think, those Russian Dwarf hamsters. Mine knows how to work an iPhone, and I'm not even joking).
Painting a new house is a strange and somewhat overrated task, isn’t it? The general consensus is that it is one of the most fun and cute tasks a couple can carry out together. You imagine adorable paint fights, whereby the husband will gently dab a spot of paint onto his wife’s nose, while she giggles hysterically and dances around to the music playing peacefully in the background, looking fly in husband’s t-shirt and a sexy high ponytail combo...
The reality? Wife screaming at husband to stop burping, while she considers laser surgery to rid her hands of emulsion. Wife isn’t rocking an oversized t-shirt and a sexy high pony, but a pair of fake tan stained joggers and an ancient I Hate People tee, with some sort of greasy bun that looks as though it has things nesting in it.
(How strong is emulsion by the way?! I’m still trying to prise bits of it off my hands! Maybe attempting to clean the emulsion brush with my bare hands was an oversight of achievement on my behalf.)
We also fell into the category of foolish individuals who willingly chose to do their ‘Big Shop’ on a Sunday morning.
One word: MAYHEM.
I didn't imagine myself to be fighting over the last packet of beetroot Falafel at 10am on the alleged 'Day of Rest,' but here we are!!
I’ll be honest, I’d never been to an Aldi before this morning, and I don’t particularly want to go again. They lure you in with absolute bangin’ prices, then capture you at the till by whacking a three figure sum onto your receipt.
‘But what did I buy for my shop to cost that much?’ You ask, as you cart nine deckchairs, a Wendy house, a rocking horse and a packet of 24 scented drinking straws off the premises.
I don’t quite know what I bought in there, but it couldn’t have been further from the shopping list I went in with...
An ice cube tray, a pony notepad, knock-off Wagon Wheels (‘Cart Wheels’), an industrial sized bag of whole-wheat pasta, and a parrot shaped spoon later, and we ‘remembered’ the mile walk back home - with two ridiculously heavy bags of shopping, and an awkward carton of milk that refused to fit in any of the bags.
Oh, and don’t even talk to me about the oven...
I have never in my life seen anything in a worse state than our oven. It has quite evidentially never once been cleaned. It looks as though Freddie Kruger has exploded inside of it.
Over a decade’s worth of gravy stains and old, shrivelled bits of chicken line the floor, and the shelves are crusted with God only knows what.
You couldn’t pay me to cook in that thing.
Honestly, I retched.
It took me over an hour to remove some of the grease, and even then, I’ve had to leave it soaking in bleach overnight. But now I’m worried, as I’m unsure whether bleach is supposed to be used inside of ovens...
Isn’t bleach, like, highly flammable? So now I’m thinking what if I don’t remove it all properly tomorrow, and the whole thing just explodes in my face when I go to cook my Smiley Face potatoes?
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Here is a list of 10 Really Boring Adult Simple Pleasures That Have Made Me Happy Today –
1.We managed to fit all of our shopping (bar the awkward milk) into our two Bags For Life.
2. I was able to hang my washing out to dry on the actual washing line in the actual garden in the actual sunshine in actual England!! This phenomenon spared me of that sickening task of trying to find surfaces to hang dripping wet clothes on in the face of a full indoor maiden.
3. The said washing dried within an hour!! Ooooohhh!! Get us, with our Indian Summer climates!
4. I managed to do a wool wash without shrinking any of my clothes to Barbie size.
5. I lit one of my new candles, and now my kitchen smells like goji berry.
6. I sucked up a stray button while hovering, and it made the most satisfying noise.
7. My Famous Five books have now been arranged in numerical order in my soon-to-be office.
8. Marzipan (the hamster) only bit me twice.
9. All of my socks came out of the washing machine in pairs. No fallen soldiers were mysterious lost during this week’s spin.
10. My cupboard is now fully stocked with Marmite. And not Aldi's own brand, either! No, I splashed out and bought the real deal.
A week of stunning breakfasts awaits!!
-
(Originally posted in September 2020)
Cara Jasmine Bradley ©