Week 3: Jurgen meets Bruce

Jurgen meet Bruce, Bruce meet Jurgen.

Silence.

But then I have just introduced the floor cleaner, "Jurgen Mopp", to the vacuum cleaner, "Bruce The Shark".

I'm not saying that being home alone is getting to me, but how long before I give Jurgen and Bruce voices and hold a conversation between them?

So, week 3. I start the week recognising that I've mis-named this blog. It's not so much "Mr H Cleans" as "Mr H Cooks ridiculously time consuming dinners, which is keeping him happy, but the house is a pit". I'd better get my act together before the kids mistake the layer of fluff for their duvets.

Turbo Jurgen and Bruce get their first proper run out. And what an upgrade they are! Jurgen flashes across the floors cleaning everything before him, his turbo-spinner-bucket leaving just the right amount of wet for the floors. He is so much better then he's predecessor. To be fair his predecessor was pretty much just a stick, but nonetheless.

And Bruce: design genius! I'm genuinely in awe of the clever folk that specified him; he has little headlights, he comes apart like lego (but doesn't then sit in a cupboard in bits that you can't reassemble), sucks like a dream, bends into peculiar angles and goes round corners beautifully. Our ex-cleaner, Tracey, was remarkably similar.

Bruce is so much better than the overweight, overblown, overpriced Dyson that we binned when it ate itself from the inside.

But enough product placement Mr H, there must have been other stuff going on. Well, just a bit ...

G (for "girl") is home, sick with an upset tum; no temperature and no cough. She tells us that she suspects that she is "a symptom-free carrier of COVID-19". Well, no. And then she hears the news that one of her best mate "Lozenge" (not her real name. Who would name their kid after a throat sweet?) and her Mum, Covonia (her real name. Apparently people do name kids after throat sweets) are self-isolating with actual symptoms. Nuts. What do we do? Does G have to self-isolate? Hold on, she's already off sick. And then the announcement that school is closing on Friday and no GCSE exams. How's that going to work? Expected grades rather than actual? Crikey.

What about B (for "Boy")? How's he been? Well stick a pole up me bum and call me a feather duster, he only WENT TO THE OPTICIANS! Three major fears in one experience; being out in public, meeting strangers and having someone very close in your personal space (if the Optometrist got any nearer to his face, she would have been checking his eyeballs from the inside). Bloody hellfire, this is such a big step. The Opticians! In public!The 64 (sixty four) tins and bottles of fizzy-pop that he managed to add to the last Ocado order are a small price to pay for such success. The delivery driver did seem confused as to why we are apparently hoarding Fanta and Dr Pepper instead of bog-roll, particularly as we all know the anti-viral value of toilet tissue.

And so the week closes; it seems that my little blog - about being stuck at home alone - will reflect the norm rather than the exception for months to come. Couldn't you buggers leave me with something unique to share?

Love & elbow grease,

Mr H