It would be fair to say that I’m not the world’s tidiest person. As a teenager I could just about pick a path across my bedroom floor, much to my mother’s chagrin. Often were the times that she’d threaten to enter my room with a black sack and chuck out anything not in its rightful place (I’ve still never forgiven her for binning my Snoopy sunglasses).

Since I’ve, like, all grown up, I have got a little better at this.   I do make some effort to keep the place tidy. My husband would probably disagree with me here. However, as his skill is more around consolidating things into neater piles rather that actually putting anything away, I don’t particularly value his judgement on this. That said, I know that this is an area I could do better at – frequently things get to a point in certain hot-spots round the house where I can’t stand it any more and have to go on a mad tidying frenzy. So I’ve been thinking how much nicer it would be to feel more in control of this and have the kind of house where you’re don’t have to panic and then constantly apologise about the mess when you have unexpected visitors (damn them).

I’m going to start small with this one, in the hope that it will inspire me to greater things. The washing up. Now, we have a dishwasher. So you would think that there wouldn’t be much actual washing up to do. But you’d be wrong sister! Being, as I am, an accumulator of kitchen gadgets, it’s most disappointing to find that many of my most-used culinary tools are not dishwasher safe. What’s that about? Microplane grater, spiraliser, our saucepans (schoolboy error there) to name but a few. I also have an unsurpassed ability to use all the knives in the preparation of the average meal, so if there isn’t enough for a full load, then having everything sharp out of use is a distinct disadvantage.

Don’t get me wrong, the washing up does get done, but not always the same day. There’s frankly nothing worse than coming down to a load of dried on, gently decaying food in the morning. So not only should washing up as I go along be more generally hygienic and pleasant, it will hopefully instil the good habit of tidying up as I go along, which I hope will imprint itself on other forms of household management.

By the way, I know what you’re thinking – if I do all the cooking, shouldn’t it be husband’s job to wash up? And you’d be right, but that ain’t gonna happen, so I might as well get on with it (he does all the washing to be fair).

The other point is that washing up does not extend to drying up. Because water evaporates and (and I know my Dad would disagree with me here) – life’s too f*****g short.