Domestic gods and goddesses

Re-establishing control after divorce
You decided to get a divorce and now your life is a mess in more ways than one. You are in danger of disappearing under piles of dirty dishes, mounds of unwashed and crumpled clothes, mountains of empty cartons from all those takeaways and enough empty bottles to fill a skip.

Add to that lot a table littered with paperwork, brown envelopes and unpaid bills, a garden that you are frightened to set foot in because it looks like the set from Jurassic Park and it’s no wonder that you can barely lift your head off the pillow in the morning to face the day. But all is not lost.

Clutter, dirt and mess are not attractive or conducive to a peaceful and positive frame of mind and that includes everything from those unopened brown envelopes to that kitchen drawer full of bits of string, elastic bands and unidentifiable bits of metal that you have kept just in case. If you are currently living in squalor and confusion then becoming a domestic god or goddess will involve rather more than a quick once over with the vacuum cleaner and a flick of the duster across the share of the ornaments that you got as part of the divorce settlement.

Dump the junk
It is estimated by those in the know who make a living out of helping others tidy up their lives, that a good half of the contents of the average house needs to be cleared out.

To get on top of the mess you need to allocate yourself plenty of time and if you are tackling a whole house you are probably going to need a few days of concerted de-junking, cleaning up as you go.

First things first
Prioritise what you need to do and start with the area which you think will benefit the most from a good clearout, invest in a supply of sturdy bags and boxes and some Marigolds and get stuck in. Sort inside and then tackle any outside spaces.

Help
Rope in some assistance from a chum or two or bribe children to get involved. There is something strangely therapeutic about a good purging, almost dare I say, enjoyable. Once you have purged don't let things slide again, a little low level maintenance should be enough to keep things hygienic and mess free.

Paperwork is ignored at your peril and should really be tackled ahead of anything else. Pretending that if you ignore the final demand for your maxed out credit card it will somehow miraculously evaporate is foolish in the extreme - look what happened to your marriage when you ignored it.

Bite the bullet, start as you mean to go on and open all those envelopes you have been so assiduously turning a blind eye to.

Of course, you can carry on as you have been but don't expect any sympathy if you end up fat, smelly, broke and lonely in your post divorce slum because no-one wants to visit a whingeing slob with no respect for themselves or their environment.