About yesterday

Friend is looking for a house exchange. Her first visitor comes to view today, but as she has a flat/apartment and we're all by the sea there was more than just her home to straighten up - white communal exterior paintwork streaked black from the rains, little things that make the difference between the first impression of a sunny corner and one of a grubby dump.
Then there was boxing stuff and carting it downstairs to the shed - not because it was mucky but because the rooms had acquired a lot of clutter that made it difficult to see the true size of the place.
I don't think any of us realise what kleptomaniacs and nest builders we are until we think of showing a stranger the depths of the airing cupboard.
Lots of leaning precariously out on windowsills to clean window glass on the outside.
The break in the middle was a mad dash back to my home town by train, to get the kids from school. Furniture was moved to remove the gaps and, again, show up the space, and all in all we took the place from homely to near utilitarian, just so that todays visitor and the ones after that can wander through in double quick time and get a fair idea of what they have to work with, if a swap goes ahead. This also meant a deal of working on bended knee to dust and clean areas of floor (graa, she has bare polished floorboards) and skirting boards that had 'settled' behind bookcases for a year or so.
Knackering, but fun, and all done now.