How to have a clean house

There is no better way I know to produce a clean house than to invite people into it, so I did - and yesterday was the day I invited them for (hence all my ill-advised tidying while I should have been bedridden.)

I was well enough not only to not cancel, but to make scones for a tea party. Progress!

Here is what my kitchen looked like while I waited to take butterscotch brownies out of the oven; they and the Little Schoolboy chocolate-topped cookies filled in the gap on the lower tier of that cake plate combo.


If you are accustomed to a proper cream tea this may or may not repel you, but you can simulate the experience of clotted cream and jam on fresh scones with cream cheese and jam on fresh scones. Hence the jam jar on the counter and the temporarily empty glass bowl beside it.

One of my guests went right over the top and brought flowers:


I just love decorating a clean house than with flowers and very nice people who like scones and chocolate cookies and butterscotch brownies. I should really clean up more often - but next time, I'll do it while I'm healthy.