The Big Clean Up!

Yes, the big clean up has started today in the Barker household...

No, we haven't been victims of fire or flood (thank God!) although we did have a bit of a leak under the bath before we went away on holiday.

The big clean up is all about filing. Restoring order into a house which was being turned into chaos by thousands of bits of paper. Lesson plans, handouts, photocopies, magazine clippings, books...

Everyone has their own particular Achilles' Heel. Mine happens to be filing. I've hated filing for most of my life and done my best to ignore it.

I was exactly the same even when I was a student at Cambridge. Every day I'd come back from lectures and dump my notes in a pile in the corner of the room. They'd still be there at the end of term, only by then the pile would be huge and deranged - and I'd end up deranged trying to sort out which sheets of paper belonged together and which subject folder each set of notes ought to end up in.

Anyway, today I decided that enough was enough. Either I tackled the filing crisis or else there would be no room for any of us in the house. There would be absolutely no chance of me opening the door to visitors - though to be honest, any visitors might be hard-pressed to find us amid the piles of paperwork.

I must say that I've surprised myself by how well I've done. My half of the four-drawer filing cabinet no longer houses bank statements and car insurance documents from 1988. It now has folders full of handouts and writing and, what's more, everything is labelled!

There's still a lot to do, but the task doesn't seem so bad now that I've freed up some space to put things. I've already managed to clear the piano duet stool and I'm looking forward to seeing my dining room table again sometime soon.