Cleaning

[lexin]

After Herculean efforts I bought a light bulb for the kitchen today (fluorescent, 1500mm) and discovered the dreadful truth. I live like a pig. For some reason, the new bulb seems to be brighter than the one it replaced, and the kitchen is now lit like the opening scene of a panto ("are we all happy boys and girls?") bringing into sharp relief my kitchen-cleaning failure of the past few weeks. (This may be a lie. It may have been longer – cleaning the kitchen rather went by the wayside when I got depressed. Don't eat at my house.)

I first tried to buy this thing on Sunday at the horrible shop near where gloria1 lives, and over a week since the previous one bit the dust. They had everything else, they sell kitchens let alone kitchen sinks, but not a 1500mm fluorescent bulb. Every other size, and shape, but not that. So, frustrated, I bought a Christmas tree. As you do, obviously.

The young man in the horrible shop told me strange stories of an electrical shop further down the road at Thatched House - which is near the place where the psychiatrist has his office – but obviously he was not open on a Sunday. It seemed to me therefore that I could roll two visits up together today.

Had I the sense given a billiard ball I'd have visited the psychiatrist first and then bought the bulb, but for some reason that obvious way round eluded me and I arrived at the psychiatrist's office clutching a fragile 1500mm of glass. And the psychiatrist says I'm not mad – really, he does. I asked him.

I also asked him what I should do about my generalised cleaning failure. He said, "Get a cleaner." Which is what gloria1 told me when I asked her. So I'm considering it.