Music Monday EXTRA! On a Friday

I hate washing up. Which is why I have a dishwasher. But for reasons that are not exactly too lengthy to explain, but would lure me into an orgy of cursing my plumber and my electrician that I fear I would never emerge from, I can't use my dishwasher at the moment, so I have been reduced to washing all my dishes by hand. The only way to survive - aside from stacking the dirty dishes very neatly so that they don't look as threatening - is to listen to the radio while washing up. And so, this morning, cleaning up after dinner for four last night, I discovered - thanks to Huey on 6 music - the absolutely perfect music for washing up to. You can boogie as you scrub, it's full of resentment, and it even has housework-related lyrics. It's A Town Called Malice (do do do do do do!):

Music Monday on a Tuesday

Once, when I was nineteen and had had a particularly emotional day (read: had just got dumped), my father told me that life would get much easier as I got older, as I would no longer feel things so deeply but instead become interested in antiques and gardening.

He was half right. I am definitely a lot more interested in antiques and gardening. In fact I spent this morning deadheading my jasmine and marvelling at the fact that it has spent several months doing a perfect impersonation of a large dead twig, but the moment the sun has come out it has leapt to glorious, verdant life. I think the jasmine and me have much in common. I am genuinely excited at the prospect of going to the garden centre on Saturday to replenish my herbs and replace the dead geraniums (geraniums will just die - I refuse to take the blame), and then I am going to get stuck into the weeds, and in fact the only thing I don't love about gardening is filling the watering can. I don't know why. I just hate it. (Oh, and cutting back the ivy, but that's not gardening, it's crowd control.)

There aren't a lot of songs about gardening, as it turns out. Feel free to suggest a few. Here's Crosby, Stills and Nash performing Our House, which does mention flowers and a yard. Just try to resist the singalong at the end. God, they look old. I wonder if they still feel things deeply and how they feel about antiques?

Vanity: fair?

I have just been interviewed by Italian Vanity Fair magazine. We had the interview at my house, at my request, because I feel self-conscious doing interviews in a cafe where people can overhear.

The interview was at 10am. At 9.30am, I suddenly realised that if you do an interview in your house, it is not only you being interviewed: it is the house itself. Flurry of panic. I was, of course, not ready myself either. Thus had to do a whole series of appraisals:

- will Vanity Fair be more shocked by my not drying my hair, or by having all my laundry inc underwear on drying rack in corner of room?
- will Vanity Fair be more shocked by my not having any make-up on, or by drifts of dust and loose hair on my white-painted staircase?
- is it worse for doorbell to ring while am carrying dustpan and brush, or with only one set of lashes wearing mascara?

And so on.

But hurrah for confused cab drivers: the journalist was 15 minutes late. Thus was able to open door with styled hair and emergency-level make-up (you know what I mean: hadn't curled my eyelashes, had stretched to Touche Eclat), graciously accept apologies for tardiness, and lead journalist into gleaming house with nary a trace of laundry to be seen. It was only when I went to make the tea that I noticed the wok from yesterday's stir-fry still sitting soaking in the sink... but she'll never know about that. Except when she looks up the blog to help her with her research. Ah well.

The thing about being interviewed, you see, is that you forget: it's not just you bring interviewed, it's your house. And your blog. And your book. Maybe I should worry less about being overheard?

Spring

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Or, in my case - perhaps because I am not a man - vermin.

The ants are back. There is no obvious entry point, there is no obvious nesting zone. There are simply ants, everywhere I look, in twos or threes, casually scoffing from the sugar bowl or checking out the toaster crumbs. They are sort of dilettante ants, tourist ants, just here for the sights. But you know what it's like with holidays, sometimes you just don't want to go home. This, I do not want. Also, possibly not as with holidays, I am desperate to figure out how to kill the blighters but I can't figure out where to put the ant poison. "All over the kitchen and dining room" seems a bit like - well - overkill. Soon, they will be building condos and selling timeshares. Why don't ants need planning permission?

Then, this morning, I went to take the recycling out and discovered a dead mouse lying in the middle of the path, pristine, but rather wet from yesterday's rains. Natural causes? Drowning? Or an offering from Matilda, next door's cat? Matilda likes to hang out on the path outside my house, and sometimes when I am doing my cello practice she jumps up onto the windowsill and rubs herself against the glass, from which I can only deduce that my cello-playing sounds like the mating call of a male cat. This is slightly better than I thought my cello playing sounded so I am not entirely disappointed, but I don't want to start receiving furry, dead gifts from an amorous Matilda. And what am I supposed to do with the mouse? Pick it up? Put it in my own bin? Do you think it can be recycled?

More to the point, do you think I could train Matilda to kill ants?