We are all well-aware of my attachment to cleaning: it really soothes my soul and I seem to be unable to relax unless the house is clean. So with that in mind I’m happy to welcome writer Emily to my blog today to talk about Feng Shui and Spring Cleaning. Get scrubbing!

In the bleak midwinter, we all effectively hibernate. Alright, many of us still have to get up and go to work every single day, but we’re never fully awake, not really. When the snow is lashing down and the roads are an ice skating rink, sleep follows people around like the memory of a dream. We all become lethargic snails with the heavy burden of winter fatigue on our backs and perpetual grimaces say to the sky, “When will it be warm again? When will I feel the sun on my face?”

Although my family successfully sated their winter blues with reruns of the X Factor and more than one tin of Quality Streets, we’re still rubbing the sleep from our eyes. After the celebratory overloads of Christmas and New Year, I’ve been avoiding something I’ve known to be an inevitability for quite some time. It’s time to embrace the changing seasons. It’s time to spring clean.

Spring Cleaning = Free Therapy

 According to the laws of feng shui, the “trinity” of your bathroom, your bedroom and your kitchen are important aspects of a happy homestead. The energies of this trinity and their relationship to the rest of the house are meant to have a profound impact on not only the interior design of your nest but on your psychological well-being. Seeing as my well-being is often hovering near zero, I thought it couldn’t hurt to improve these spiritual forces– even if this means buying a bonsai tree and organising pebbles in a sandbox.

With the resolution of a mad woman, I decided to inspect the destruction closer. Every surface of my home seemed to be covered in the dusty glitter of Christmas. Tuffs of tinsel clung to sellotape on the banister. A snowman ornament was still sitting on the mantelpiece, stubbornly out of season. There was an unopened M&S Christmas Pudding in the cupboard and traces of a festive feast were somehow still surviving on my beloved leisure cooker. Slipping the marigolds on and turning the radio up to full volume, I reached under the skin and grabbed the bleach with both hands.

Things were about to get clean, real clean.

The Goddess of Dusting

The house inhabited a fuggy winter smell, like a warm unwashed duvet stuffed with roasted root vegetables and morning breath. I knew that it was time to emerge from hibernation, to open all the windows and to let the sun shine in, but for one moment I soaked in the smell and smiled to myself. It had been a good Christmas.

Pulling broken things from drawers and hair from plugholes; washing skirting-boards and turning the sofa on its head; brushing cinders from the fireplace and cobwebs from the corners; I was a woman possessed. Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell was the soundtrack to my frenzied blitz and at one point, I swear I can remember growing eight arms like the Hindu goddess Durga and completing eight different tasks simultaneously.

I find cleaning cathartic, I always have. There’s something about bringing order to disorder that makes my mind do the same thing, and as I put forgotten objects in their rightful place and dashed dust from the living room rug, a swell of optimism rippled through me. It was the beginning of a new season, a season of growth and birth and blossom; of possibility. With the house looking as immaculate as the day it was built and a jar of daffodil buds promising flowers for every room, I felt like I had polished my soul.