Spring cleaning

I am still sick.  I don't know if it is that which is spurring me to scrub the house from top to bottom, or just because when I do the afternoon school run it is still light when I get home, but the call to spring clean is strong right now!  Whenever I think about spring cleaning it always reminds me of this little mole with his bucket of whitewash, a very treasured memory from my childhood...


"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring- cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said 'Bother!' and 'O blow!' and also 'Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat."
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

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