Cluttterbye. 'A tidy house a tidy mind' - ok, I'll do the housework just as soon as I've decluttered my mind.

Whoever said, 'a tidy house a tidy mind' may have had a point. I mouthed this mantra as I lay, belly down, dusting the wooden floor under the sofa with my hands. I retrieved a significant handful of fluff along with a random Pinky sized sock , some loose change, a AAA battery and a bull sized toenail clipping. Now I had a pocket full of clutter with a mind to match. Corner to corner, room to room, my pockets slowly filled up with miscellaneous objects. Fragments of bigger things lost and destroyed by little Things. My little Things. Pinky, Thing 1, who isn't actually that little at all, and his skin and blister, Thing 2. As I picked a Connect Four disc out of the fruit bowl, the mantra became a loud whisper.

Ferbreezing the curtains helped to take my thoughts away from the pending drudgery. You know I'm a sucker for smells. They're on a parr with music for having the ability to take me to another time and place. If I close my eyes and inhale the scent of fresh wildflower meadows, I can trick myself into believing this sweet smelling house must be tidy as well as clean. Pop a bit of Vivaldi onto the i-Pod and replace the Proctor and Gamble chemicals with Sanctuary linen spray and I could be in one of the suites at Lumley Castle. If I'd been there on a Monday morning, instead of chez Moo, I doubt I'd have been fretting over reuniting a piece of plastic with its yellow brothers and sisters.

I don't have a problem with cleaning. It's the tidying that has to be done first which causes me to procrastinate. So far this morning, I've made a bacon sandwich, smoked 2 cigarettes (one with each cup of tea), chatted on Facebook and pondered over this blog. Anything to avoid the dreaded housework. Perhaps I over exerted myself yesterday and feel I need to be rewarded for the trio of charity bags I managed to fill and drop off at Oxfam this morning. It's good to know that my daughter's clutter will be converted into something more useful. The clear floor in her bedroom is a bonus too. Now I'll be able to vacuum without running the risk of blocking up the Dyson with hair bands, Barbie shoes and pennies. One room down, only 10 more to go!

Pots (Mr Moo) keeps urging me to pay one of our old cleaners to come back and 'help me keep on top of things'. If I were just a teensy bit paranoid, I could take that as an insult to my housekeeping abilities. I usually rebuff these suggestions on the basis that I've never had much success in employing people to declutter and clean. A few years ago, when my business was thriving, I decided I could justify hiring a cleaner. Enter Fizz.

Larger than life with a mouth to match, she came armed with a pair of slippers and a 2 litre bottle of coke. She claimed to be gifted (she did appear to be a little....erm....special) and often pointed out my typical Gemini traits. Actually, I think she did read my mind once as I stashed her FULL FAT pop in the fridge because she started a monologue about how her large frame was the result of a gland problem. Nothing to do with the 6-packet of chocolate Hobnobs she polished off at my friend's house then? The fact that she'd taken them without asking was a little worrying, as was the way she used our CD/DVD collection as a free library and spent two out of the four hours I paid her for on our phone, sorting out her disability/spf/housing benefits. Maybe it was my fault for telling her I was laid back. A few months in, her chubby feet were so far under our table that it began to hinder her performance. Ironically though, it was then that she decided to announce a 20% increase in her hourly rate. Exit Fizz.

Enter Daphne. If you're imagining a french au-pair type or Scooby Doo's blonde friend, think again. Think more Mrs Doubtfire meets Deidre Barlow. A good all rounder and was game for occasional babysitting jobs too, however she insisted on spending most of her time ironing. Sadly, Daph couldn't master the steam function so I often resorted to doing the pile again, cursing her through gritted teeth. I think she preferred this task to all the ones I'd hinted at, politely asked her to do, then finally WRITTEN IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS ON A NOTE, which I placed under her wages. Despite several pleas, she would not do the windows or under the toilet seat. After a few months of good work (in between month long holidays of visiting her globally spread children) she too seemed to lose interest. I arrived home early from work a few times to find her long gone, or on her way out. Rather than challenging her, I started working from home while she was there so she wouldn't take advantage. During that time I realised why my house seemed clean. It was the smell. A quarter litre of bleach tickled around the loos with a toilet brush, Zoflora mixed with water and squirted from a plant mister, a cup full (I think she misread CAP full) of Pledge wooden floor cleaner in the mop bucket and Mr Sheen polish. I know he's meant to 'shine umpteen things clean', but not, surely, the dining room floor? Although, it did provide a great comedy moment when Pinky decided to rugby tackle Thing 2. The sock/polish combo produced a slide tackle John Terry would've been proud of. The table put up a strong defence, much to the intended target's delight. Anyway, soon after I found my key posted through the door. Another mind reader!

This term I'm taking on an extra day a week at work. I've come to the conclusion that increasing the amount of time I'm working to deadlines, rules and bells will make me more productive. Following a Year 8 history lesson with an autistic adolescent certainly makes me focus so much that I have to mentally sweep the clutter into the corners of my mind. Watching Hitler's abominations on the class TV helps me forget about the mini-warfare going on inside my own head.

I'll leave you with some wise words I saw recently on a cross stitch sampler:

"A tidy house is a sign of a wasted life"