Daily Sparks Writing | How to Wash Windows

 

~ Taking inspiration from Rajiv Surendra and Ruth Milligan ~

I am sitting in the old workshed. There’s a distant dull thump of music. A magpie jeering. Clock ticking.

In front of me, in the pigeon holes over the desk, a tiny seed-head with its seed-ballast is a fan of fine fronds that could spin away on the breeze if i hadn’t given it shelter here. Dormant. Waiting. Perhaps soon i will set it free, give it a chance to grow.

. . .

How to Wash Windows, with Rajiv Surendra | Life Skills with Rajiv

How do you get to fifty and not know how to clean a window?

D__ who cleans the outsides, makes it look quick and easy. But he comes to do it once a month; he’s got years of experience; he’s probably got some kind of secret formula in that bucket of froth. Or perhaps it’s just washing up liquid. I’ve never asked and now I wish I had.

What D__ does is he slops on plenty of liquid with a cloth, squeegees it off with his squeegee and he’s done; and he does a nice job too. So nice that it shows up just how dirty the windows are on the inside.

My ma, super talented homemaker that she was, knew every old trick in the book and swore by the ‘proper’ scrunched up newspaper ‘n’ vinegar approach. All very well back in the day when the morning paper flopped on the doormat and you were desperate to get rid of yesterday’s news before you all perished in a tragic accidental avalanche of Sunday supplements. The only thing vaguely resembling a newspaper in our house these days is the occasional free-sheet from the council; and i have my suspicion that modern eco-friendly inks are a world apart from the traditional Times-needing-an-iron-by-the-butler-before-you-touched-it chemicals that might help get your windows sparkly. And anyway, there never seems to be one in the recycling box when the mood takes me for cleaning (which is not often, I admit).

I like the idea of a magic modern spray to spritz on and wipe off with a lint-free cloth. I don’t have such a spray. I lie awake at night worrying about the environmental impact of the toxic chemicals inside, not to mention all that plastic in the bottle. Too much angst involved there.

But I’m looking for a solution like that, one I can pass on to a 16 year old who might be willing to help out if not too much hard work and dirt is involved.

Only the truth is, cleaning is about hard work and dirt. Especially if you don’t do it very often. There’s only so much grime anything can cut through without a good old dose of elbow grease.

The husband (he of the ‘i can’t believe you’ve made it to fifty without knowing how to clean windows’ throw-away stab to the heart) swears by hot soapy water and a good old scrub with a cloth.

The heavenly Rajiv (of whom my mother would much approve for his love of all housekeeping methods traditional, and most especially his hospital corners) popped up on my youtube feed this morning with a whole new alternative suggestion (has he been eavesdropping on our domestic disagreements? Uncanny timing.)

So six thirty this morning (the glorious gift of time that is insomnia!) found me with a bucket of warm water enhanced with just a smidge of cornstarch (American for cornflour ― i googled to double check), and many many old cut up bits of t-shirt. 

Verdict? 

Bedroom and bathroom, which boasted not-too-awful layers of daytoday dust, i found I needed several more go-overs than Rajiv’s merry single-sud-and-polish approach, but once I mastered the technique of a thorough wiping with the cotton cloth dipped in the warm water-with-a-dash-of-cornflour bucket, leaving it a moment while I did the next window, coming back to wipe off with a dry-ish cloth (that didn’t stay dry for long) and then returning for another polish with a dry cloth on dry glass, I would say the windows were nice and clean. A couple more stubborn areas and the corners of the bathroom windows where there was a hint of black mould taking root needed a second go, but overall the result was pretty pleasing.

Glass doors in the kitchen were a whole other challenge. I tried both approaches: Rajiv’s sprinkle of cornstarch on one door; husband’s hot soapy water on the other. Either way, what it took was determination, sloshing, wiping, sloshing again, giving it a good rub, wiping, polishing, noticing the bits where I’d given it a proper rubbing were looking a hell of a lot cleaner than the rest, being mildly disgusted by the yellowy scummy residue on the cloth, dipping again, wringing again, sloshing again, really really scrubbing this time, wiping, polishing, polishing again. Remembering to stop for regular glugs of fresh water (for me as well as the windows) and at the end, the satisfaction of not giving up and nice clean windows that no one but me will ever really notice.

I also caught many dusty old cobwebs on my cloth, but didn’t evict the resident spiders. I’m very happy for them to keep up the good work of catching flies and i find their webs beautiful. Amongst the many rambling thoughts that passed through my head while I was at the business of scrubbing (you know, female emancipation, climate change, the environmental impact of plastic and chemicals, what we were going to have for tea, i must remember to pick up the dog’s tablets from the vet and send that email about that job I’ve got coming up ― that sort of thing . . .) I thought about disgust as a learned response, about cobwebs being used to dress wounds because they are so clean and now we banish them from our houses to be replaced by costly (to purse and planet) man-made alternatives and because having cobwebs means (to quote Rajiv’s lovely-sounding Irish friend whose name I alas forget) ‘standards are slipping’.

So I’m happy to have learned, age fifty, how to clean windows with just water and a sprinkle of cornstarch from its lovely old-fashioned paper bag in a cardboard box that possibly holds enough fine powder to keep me in cleaning for the next fifty years. I’m happy to put in the time and the effort and enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done.

Now I just have to persuade the 16 year old . . .

\ \

Ruth Milligan | Dust if you Must

While cleaning today

I wrote a hundred thousand witty entertaining words

On the subject of cleaning

Sitting down later

To capture them on paper

I find that they

Have vanished

Clean

Away.