Spring cleaning (a little in advance).

The porch has a black and white tiled floor and has been filthy for ages. There seemed no point in cleaning it when snowy boots were tramping in and out. Today though, a shaft of sunshine illuminated just how grotty it was. Mr G had bought a new deck-scrubbing brush and it worked a treat. Floor was scrubbed and rinsed and mopped with wads of kitchen towel, crevices were de-cobwebbed (making sure there were no living inhabitants) and I even cleaned the windows.

Feeling pleased with myself, I thought, 'What shall I tackle next?' and my eyes lighted on the heap of paperwork on the futon in my old office, where my laptop still resides.

My dad was a hoarder. After he died, we found in the garage every copy of The Liverpool Echo going back to 1949 when Mum and Dad moved into the house. He was forever tearing interesting items out of the paper - he read the local papers and The Times - and posting them to me. As a journalist for many years, I too got into the habit of snipping items out of newspapers and magazines, not just those that might come in handy for an article or a story, but items relating to health, home and garden, recipes, you name it. Before all my stuff went into storage, I had four 2-drawer filing cabinets containing files labelled Health, Home, Recipes, etc. Now I just have two and they are stuffed to the limit, so things tend to accumulate.

It has taken me two hours to clear the sofa. Now I have to clear the 'halfway house', which is a cabinet at the foot of the stairs, upon which it is my wont to place items that are 'on their way upstairs'. Of course, they rarely make it because if they do, they just join the futon heap. So my task for tomorrow is to tackle them.

Will I find the missing back statement from last August? And how about the card containing a long-lost friend's new address, the loss of which has resulted in them becoming long-lost all over again? Watch this space. I meet even find a cheque I forgot to pay into the bank, or a letter saying I've won £100 on the Premium Bonds. No? Well, there's nowt wrong with the power of positive thinking, is there? I have conjured up an image of a disembodied hand writing me a cheque for a million quid in my mind. Perhaps, if I can just concentrate hard enough...