Stepped into the kids' bathroom today and immediately started to wonder if my tetanus shots were up to date. My God it was disgusting. The three of them must have staggeringly good immune systems if they can survive that environment. It was so foul that I felt compelled to attack it, not with my trusty Method cleaners, but with litres and litres of bleach. It is now sanitary, and, once the bleach fumes dissipate, it may even be quite a pleasant environment. This will be good news for my parents, who will have to share this bathroom with the kids.

Actually I got a bit carried away while cleaning. Ended up dismantling the taps as I realised that they were all icky inside. Have a feeling that this way madness lies ... Anyway, I felt terribly self-righteous after I'd finished up in the bathroom, but that feeling dissipated slightly when I moved onto cleaning the kitchen and realised how disorganised I can be. How is it, for instance, that I have managed to buy three jars of cumin? And two of tarragon, when no-one even likes tarragon?

My cleaning endeavours were slightly complicated when Bobby came in from the trampline spouting great gobs of blood everywhere. Seems that, in a rather freakish accident, he caught his middle toe in the netting as he came down from a jump. The cut is at the bottom of his toe, where it joins his foot, and is horribly , frighteningly, deep and gaping. In fact, I think it needs a couple of stitches. But Bobby flat-out refused to go to the ER, on the grounds that it would take up his whole day. Which is true. But still. If you have a cut that's gushing staggering amounts of blood, you'd think you might sacrifice your Sunday afternoon to getting it fixed. But he was intransigent, so I ended up cleaning the wound as best I could in the bath, and sticking a totally inadequate token cat-in-the-hat bandaid on it. Since the cut is in a spot where band-aids aren't terribly effective, I initially wanted to use this spray bandage stuff on it. Bobs was quite keen on the idea till I actually sprayed it on, at which stage he yelled blue murder. I wanted to see if he was over-reacting to I yanked the scab off a little scrape I got climbing yesterday (such is my dedication to scientific enquiry) and shit yes, it burns! Guess I'll be taking it out of my purse; I had it in there in case anyone needed it while we were out and about.

Current housecleaning status : bathrooms - good. Linen cupboard - safe to open. Games / homeschool cupboard - moderately frightening. Pantry - clean. Fridge - nothing will jump out at you. Oven - clean. (Yes!!) Study - disastrous. Girls' rooms : perfect. Stephen's room - you know the answer to that one. Our bedroom carpet - bloody.