Our blood-soaked walls...

[wiseheart]

Ha! That got your attention, didn't it?

But the truth is, we really have blood on our walls... everywhere I've managed to kill a gnat. At least I think gnat is the right word. There are insects; not exactly mosquitos, actually smaller, I think, but they bite. Mum and I are generously polka-dotted with red insect bites, so I declared war on the things. Enough is enough. They are usually so full of blood - our blood, dammit - that when I swat one, there's a smear of blood on the wall. Sometimes I can get it off, but not always. So I foresee some correction work once the gnat season is over - I'll have to use a small brush and white paint to cover the evidence of my killing spree. *g*

In any case, we had the big window cleaning today; well, half of it, as it was boiling hot and we didn't want out cleaning lady to pass out in the middle of the action. We got the lace curtains washed, which means Mum's soul is finally pacified; she does have a bit of what the Germans call a Putzfimmel, and it bothers to no end that she can't lick and scrub the dratted flat as much as she used to do, say, 25-30 years ago.

Me, I firmly believe that the flat is there for us to live in it and not to declare it to the ultimate goal of our lives, but we disagree in that point.

Due to the big, badass cleaning I didn't have much time (and strength) left for crafting, especially as I had to do a short food run, too, in the morning, when it wasn't quite that hot yet. I originally planned to go much earlier, but after a night with repeatedly interrupted sleep (due to the heat and to wild dreams) I just couldn't drag myself out of bed according to plan. Ah, well...

Still, I have finished the page I began yesterday, but to take a photo I'd have to pull up the Venetian blinds, which would be suicidal at the moment. Pictures tomorrow, I promise.

Comments

[meathiel]

Definitely too hot to do the cleaning.
A pity your mum is a bit particular about it.
*hugs*

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

In a manner I even understand her. This was her very first flat after having lived on the questionable mercy of other people for decades, and she wants to show it off. Her generation also has very firm ideas what a "proper" flat ought to look like. ;)

[noadvertising.livejournal.com]

That´s why hubby is making all those fly screens. We have gnats aplenty outside with all the biotopes and rain water tanks near our house. Though gnats only want my blood, never hubby´s!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

By us it was Grandpa the Viecher avoided like the plague. Every blood-sucking insect loves my blood, though. I'm always beloved by the wrong creatures.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Are they day or night biters? Night-biting mozzies are a problem here. In summer I sleep under a mosquito net, it looks unsightly but if I get bitten I tend to swell up! At least with the net I can have the windows open at night. As it happens, I got the net years ago when I lived in Oxford. The mosquitos were huge there and the bites really nasty.
I need to get a second net, well eventually, to protect any summer visitor who might stay over. Visitors are not happening this summer!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I think rather night biters. We sleep with the windows closed due to paranoia (not because of the gnats), but even so, they always find a way in.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

better than bedbugs....

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Biting insects are horrible.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you should leave the blood stains as a warning to others...

My mother always had a thing about the lace curtains too. My sister got slightly tinted glass in her front windows to protect against the sun and mu mother thought it was horrible as it would have made lace curtains (which my sister didn't actually have) look as if they needed washing and bleaching!

[medievalrosalie.livejournal.com]

I do find cleaning to be therapeutic and get more crafting in a clean environment, so it's really pre-crafting, isn't it? :)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

True enough. Still very unpleasant, though.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

They are. I hate them.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you should leave the blood stains as a warning to others...
Perhaps, but then everyone would think our walls have the chicken pox. *g*

Lace curtains are actually nice. I do like them. But I can't climb any higher than the second step of the ladder, so we always need help with taking them down and then putting them up again.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

For some people it perhaps is. I hate cleaning with a passion; it's so pointless, as the effect only lasts a day — two days if you're very lucky.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I like them too — although we don't have them downstairs here, only on the side windows upstairs, as the house had vertical blinds on all the front windows. But my poor mother was so stressed at the idea of tinted glass meaning people going past might think your nets needed beaching made me smile.

Mum's windows were not high so, when she could no longer reach to put up clean nets, I used to do it on a footstool that was a bout 30cm high — or S2C did it just by reaching up :)

[mirasaui.livejournal.com]

I feel for you, there are days I wish I could just let everything go. But then, that just makes the next days cleaning harder.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Same thing with the washing-up. The lesser evil is to keep to your schedule stubbornly and do it as quickly as possible.