A Christmas star

Since shortly before Christmas, our vacuum cleaner has been ill.  I spent ages cleaning it on Christmas Eve of all occasions, as if I had nothing else to do that day.  After unscrewing bits, taking out the brushes, and digging about with a knife and a chopstick I eventually removed all the clogged dust balls and revealed the root of the problem: a luminous star.  All this had to be done with the aid of a torch and fortunately Ian has a collection of torches that could have been designed for the job, all just the right size to beam down the clogged tube.  And the added bonus of the torchlight is that at the end of cleaning there is a glowing star to reward you.  Practically makes it all worthwhile.

I made the girls come and see the star and gave them a spiel about why they should leave stuff lying about on the floor and how they should look after their stuff a bit better.  “Don’t worry,” Oriana reassured me, “I have another star.”  Thanks.

Since Christmas, vacuuming has become a routine of cleaning the floor then sitting down with a chopstick and a torch to clean the cleaning machine.  I’m not a big fan of cleaning and this extra discouragement is really not what I need to make me house proud.

Yesterday morning I was driven to whizz through the house which was looking a little the worse for wear after a weekend of four little girls, including a toddler with a passion for flapjack.  This time I could not find the dust ball… or the star.  This was not good news.  It meant that something was jamming the dust ball more surely than it had been jammed before.  I even looked up vacuum repair shops; the nearest two are both a long way off and in towns I have no other need to visit.

This morning I was driven to clean again.  Now I know this makes me sound like a serious clean freak, but the truth is that we do have carpet – however hideous, however impractical, carpet nonetheless – in the kitchen and we did have eight small girls to play yesterday and it’s easier to vacuum cake up from under the table when it’s still crumbs than to wait for it to be ground into the carpet.

I didn’t vacuum much, just the bits with lumps of cake.  The vacuum flashed at me red and angry “bag full, bag full” to tell me that there was a jam.  I know.  I can do nothing.

Armed again with my chopstick and torch I did something slightly different, turning the vacuum cleaner upside down with its upright unhooked.  A huge dust ball… and a star.  Eureka!  That wasn't in the instruction manual.

I doubt it’ll make me clean any less often, but it’s still bloody marvellous.  Hooray.