I still have all the dark furniture in the flat. Stag it is called if anyone is interested in making an offer.
My mother has had it since I was six, or at least a version of it. The bedrooms of my youth were furnished with dark furniture the living rooms with light.
I now know why she dusted every day.
I also know why she had runners on all her tables and bedside lockers.
I suspect dark furniture is one of the reasons her surfaces were kept bare, easier for swiping the duster around on.
I am house proud but not a fanatic. I like everything picked up, not left in piles on tables, counters, sides and chairs; I don’t like dust that I can see.
Once a week I clean, just before my radio show to keep me on schedule, time flies when you’re not doing housework! I dust, mop, scrub and put away any malingering items that have managed to escape notice and are in the wrong place in piles.
This lasts for seven days especially in an empty nester’s flat.
But with the dark furniture I am cowed into dusting more often than once a week.
I clean off the surface, spray Mr. Sheen and polish the gleaming mahogany. There’s no flicking a cloth casually around the perfume bottles on the dressing table, a half wiped surface makes the remaining motes dance and shimmy.
I try ignoring it but can’t, the sun shines through the windows and catches every speck. After a week ladybirds and fruit flies leave visible tracks as they make their way across the surface of my desk. After two weeks they start to get bogged down and sneeze.
I halfheartedly offered it to my brother,
“Well yes…that’s my furniture, dark.”
And I remember it is. Only his looks majestic and rich as it should when it is dust free or draped in a tablecloth, or on a dull day.
Perhaps I am too close to appreciate the surface beauty.
The sun lingers in the room glinting off the mirrors and dazzling the dust into high kicks.
When the sun goes in the dust follows.
Maybe it’s not really there.
Maybe I should keep the curtains closed.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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