Taunton is a clean town. I’m not talking class A here, but just tidiness and litter free living. Vivary Park and French Weir are always neat and absent of much clutter. East Street and Bridge Street are rarely festooned with take away wrappers in the way some towns are (I think we all know where I’m talking about…).
This attracts me as, to be honest, cleaning has never been my thing. It is a matter of verb versus noun: I like things to be clean; I just don’t like cleaning. It takes time, effort and skill, and I possess only one of the three.
And owning a dog makes the whole process slightly pointless anyway. The hound has an ingrained commitment to grubbiness, she makes no effort to wipe her feet and in fact goes out of her way to find the most disgusting thing she can, immerse herself in it and then sprint upstairs to the bedrooms to share the love. She is like a reverse spring clean; the anti-cleaner.
But to be fair, I can’t only blame her. I, and the teenage children who I am fortunate enough (they tell me) to share my life with, have a laissez faire approach to household order. Houses are to be enjoyed, not maintained in aspic. This is all fine if I had the inclination and ability to balance the enjoyment with the occasional dust and sweep, but, you know, Netflix gets in the way.
But now that has all changed. Nobby came into our lives. Nobby loves cleaning. Nobby never complains. Nobby gets into all the corners, getting rid of dust and bits of food and dog detritus and is happy to clean room after room. Until his battery runs out anyway.
Nobby is an automatic hoover, or Robo Vac. I got him from my local store in East Street – no advertising allowed but I used to love their little pens. Once charged and ready to roll, he rolls. And cleans. Hard floors and soft floors, constantly twisting and turning and never commenting negatively about my poor placement of dog toys and dirty clothes, he just keep going.
The house has never looked so good.
So why can’t we have more of these clever little things. A robo chef perhaps? Or robo shop? A Robo dog walker would give me back (some of) the time I have wasted watching Netflix.
Or maybe we combine two probably unnecessary but clearly good things and put some kind of suction device on the new scooters seen around town in the last few months. Then we could all get from A to B quickly, efficiently and in an environmentally friendly fashion while performing a community service. If we can tie in recycling, I think this a winner.
