I have been sent into a mad cleaning frenzy

And lots of it. One local school this week had to close its doors to an entire year group due to staff absence and student sickness and several other schools in Hampshire have closed in the past few weeks, requiring deep cleans and de-bugging. The issue with schools of course is the close proximity of a thousand or more kids and young adults. I do not wish to besmirch the youth of our nation, but I have a heavy suspicion that hand-washing and maintaining personal space are two items that are not towering high on their agendas. I am the kind of person who cringes when I see another woman leaving a public loo without washing their hands – I mean, come on – and I am not adverse to a nice blob of hand sanitiser either. Therefore, imagine my disgust when I read this week that nothing but bleach kills the norovirus? Not hand-sanitisers, not your disinfectant sprays, nor your average disinfectant wipe. It was as if the very foundation upon which my cleaning belief systems balance had been shaken to its core. The hours, perhaps even days, that I have spent de-germing the house across the years when the kids or husband have had a virus or similar. The amount of door handles I have wiped and upholstery I have spritzed with my trusty Dettol aerosol for it then to transpire that I may as well have just left them to grow new life forms. In short people, wash your hands. Soap ‘em, scrub ‘em, and try to fall short of actually just bleaching your entire self. If it stops you hugging the porcelain like I had to on the coldest night for seven years whilst simultaneously losing your innards, I am sure you will thank me. Here comes the sun… oh wait, it’s sadly still February I know that January and February are never the cheeriest of months, but am I alone in thinking that thus far they have been the longest, grimmest and most relentless slog ever? I don’t mean in terms of the weather so much. But it’s the sheer darkness, gloom and Groundhog Day repetition of grey that is getting to me. By day 912 of January I had had enough and foolishly believed that the coming of February – daffodils, pay day, promise of spring – would liven things up a bit. Alas, no. A few more weeks of The Great Grey Battle are still required before the pastels of Easter, the bloom of the flowers, and possibly a blue sky or two, arrive to cheer us up. We are all to blame for the sad death of our high street I was chatting to folk at Ocean Retail Park this week about the Toys‘R’Us store and, a year on, there is apparently still no firm plan as to what will go in there. Rumours are whizzing around, as they tend to do, about both that empty store space and the Homebase site but with no facts to back them up. Given the draw of Boots and M&S – both exciting for the northern end of the city – it will be a real shame if the larger stores now sit empty. But then, given the current death of the high street, it is of little surprise. Amazon and other large online companies have much to answer for. However we are the customers and we have voted with our Paypal accounts.

I have been sent into a mad cleaning frenzy – Verity Lush