Somewhere in the dim recesses of my television sitcom memory I recall an episode of AbFab where Edina is renovating the kitchen in the bid to have as many “surfaces, surfaces, surfaces, darling” as she can. (NB. clearly this is not a direct quote but it’s how I remember it). This morning at work a desire for ruthless cleaning and tidying descended upon me. And I now find myself rediscovering many surfaces. The surface of my desk, the surface on top of my filing cabinet, the surfaces of now cleaned and emptied drawers and the surfaces of in/out trays that were previously piled high with old student assessments and papers. At the time, keeping all this paper seems absolutely essential but when I found myself throwing out things from 2003, I realised the tidy up was well overdue.

I’m now rewarding myself for my diligent cleaning with a cup of tea.

(I also found seven coffee mugs…four of which are now in a box to be taken home. They were clean, but excessive. Really, there is a limit to how many cups of tea or coffee can I drink at one time. (i.e. one!) It’s not like I’m throwing an afternoon tea in here)