Monday 1 February 2021

Happiness

It is dark. It is wet. It is cold. It is January. I forget exactly when so-called "Blue Monday" is but the whole of 2021 could be described as that so far in my opinion. At some point during the autumn last year I optimistically booked a trip to Cyprus for the spring. Something to look forward to, some warmth and some birds, and at the time Cyprus was one of the few places that wasn't enforcing quarantine at either end. Part of me (the realistic part) knew that I was wasting my time but it didn't matter, it was light at the end of the tunnel, something to focus on, to bring good memories of past visits to life. A week ago it was unapologetically cancelled by the airline. A brief, curt email saying that my card would be refunded. And so the wait goes on.

Situations like this call for drastic action. If home is where it is at for the forseeable future then that needs to be the focus. But what could possibly augment the already sumptuous surroundings of Chateau L? What could possibly be so life-enhancing that all thoughts of sun and Wheatears simply evaporate into nothingness?



This, that's what. A Hoover H-free 500 "Pet". A deep and meaningful relationship is well on the way to developing. Indeed Mrs L has already commented that she expects to find it in her side of the bed quite soon and to be relegated to the spare room. I should have done this years ago. I can now be found vacuuming about 15 times a day, no room is safe. Just a quick two minutes here or there, that is all it takes for the inner glow to arrive. Mood altering, near instant endorphins. It weighs nothing, it has a host of attachments for various cleaning tasks, and as a unit it is incredibly well thought out, for instance you can remove the long tube, extend some bristles, and hey presto you have a hand-held dust-buster. And it is pink! It even has headlights to illuminate those dark corners. I was almost motivated to leave a middle-aged review on the website but have resisted.


There are limits of course. The battery lasts a mere half an hour, under ten minutes if on "turbo" mode, and then takes six hours to recharge. It does not have the same suction as a regular vacuum cleaner, some heavier bits of crud seem to survive repeated onslaught. And the tiny container fills up near instantly, especially when used in the dustier recesses of Chateau L, but actually this a therapeutic advantage for I can then spend five pleasurable minutes disassembling it, emptying it, and then dusting its innards on the balcony as the wind blows the bits across my neighbours. It is every bit as satisfying as removing lint from a tumble dryer.

Needless to say the house is beginning to sparkle. Where before I might have looked at a dirty carpet and unconsciously calculated how long it would take to go and dig out Henry Hoover and lug it to the room in question and back again before going and doing something else, now it is the job of seconds to quickly grab my new toy and give the offending detritus the once over. And of course the container is transparent so you can see the results, you can measure the success! I've owned two Dysons in the past and both died what I felt were expensively premature deaths, but I do have fond memories of being able to see the dirty vortex. Henry has been great but nowhere near as visually satisfying. 

Anyway, that's quite enough of that. I have to go and do something....

17 comments:

  1. There are several excellent help groups available. H-Anonymous is probably the best. Stop now, while you still can, buddy...

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  2. Just bought a Dyson - oh dear! Never mind. I too am found manning [!] it at every opportunity and am appalled at the amount of muck that Henry didn't collect. Life, eh.

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    1. I don't think it is Henry necessarily, I think it just you are looking at the container in a new way. If you need reassurance you could empty the Henry bag by hand. I did this once whilst looking for a lost earring.

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  3. Felt the same when using a Karcher window vaccum. Now use it having just mopped the floor.

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  4. We still have a corded Dyson dc04 which must be around 20 years old and still going strong. It is now my DIY vacuum cleaner and therefore gets abused with all kinds of crud. Superb value! And we now have a cordless Dyson for the house, which has very similar performance characteristics to your Hoover by the sound of it. Love it.

    There endeth a blog comment I never thought I'd write.

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    1. You are the first person I have heard of whose Dyson has not died. We've had two, a yellow one and a purple one, and both died. All £700 of them. Then we bought a VAX for about £100, unfortunately that was just before we had some building work done and so that too died. I then noticed that every workman that turned up had a Henry so I bought one too and it was a revelation. Not sufficiently revelatory to lug it up to the loft all the time, or do the stairs, hence this sexy little pink number...

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  5. Yes we have something similar, my husband is very fond of it. Went to Beckton Sewage works on Sunday - quite a few birds (nothing spectacular) - chiffchaff, teal, chaffinch, that sort of thing but quite fun

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  6. This post reminds me of a time when a mate of mine bought a pressure washer. I'll never forget that first night in the pub when he droned on and on about how it had changed his life and how I wouldn't believe how good his patrio and drive looked. Funnily enough, I don't see him much now. Seriously, I wish the two of you many happy years together. – Malcolm

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  7. Does this mean you can now ditch the indoor shoes and go for socks?

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  8. We have 'Lemmy' a Dyson v7 Motorhead cordless hoover. It was great initially but now packs in after about 20 seconds on turbo & you have to pop it back on the charger for a few seconds then go again. Lamey more like...

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