We returned to Harpenden one last time to clean up the flat and give in the keys and also to pick up my bike (which I have used three times in the five months we've been there, so it was certainly worth bending and breaking it in the back of my car). Would we clean the flat to a high enough standard to ensure we got our deposit back? I hope so. We worked pretty hard at it. And we're paying for a month that we won't be using anyway, so fingers crossed we don't get ripped off by the landlord in his suit and tie. But now comes the jeopardy as we wait to see.
I don't do much cleaning these days - not because I am married and expect my wife to do it, you misogynist sexist, but because I pay an Eastern European lady to do my cleaning for me. Hmmm, maybe that makes me the sexist and a racist too. It's so hard to tell these days. So the novelty of scrubbing toilets and jifing in cupboards (I said jifing - I know it should be cifing but that doesn't sound as rude) and trying to get bird shit off windows made the activity almost fun. Though the hoover in the flat has about as much suction as a wind tunnel set on maximum blow. It sucks. In its inability to suck. So Mr Landlord in your suit and tie, if the carpet isn't spotless it's your fault not ours.
We'd pretty much finished and were about to go, but then I decided we should try and clean the bedroom window. Although we were on the 2nd floor you can spin the windows round to clean inside and out, although there is a little catch to operate and if you aren't careful the window spins round a bit fast. I did OK with the mechanism, but didn't have window cleaning equipment and pretty much just smeared the dirt around using a floor wipe. My wife commented, possibly correctly, but it's not this blog's job to take sides, that the window was now much worse than it had been before and that I was in danger of turning this into a sitcom episode where I ruined everything at the last minute by being over fussy.
I told her I would sort it out and found a dry bit of material that I could use to wipe the smears away, but she still wasn't satisfied and decided that she would have to do the cleaning because I was clearly rubbish. And look, let's not play the blame game here. Who knows who was right about this?
But she couldn't open the window, so I did it for her, but assumed she was guiding the window round, which she wasn't (clearly her fault, right everyone?) and the window swung round too fast. Luckily the whole thing didn't smash to pieces making the walls fall away and the building collapse, leaving us standing holding the window covered in dust with my wife saying, "What did I tell you?"
But it did smash some little tea-light candles on the window sill meaning I had to clear up the glass. Luckily they weren't on the inventory. We might have got away with it. There's no way the landlord can find out.
Then we left our first marital home for the last time.
