When I’m Cleaning Windows

I have no idea what the elected members of a school’s Parents and Guardians Association do in other countries but here in Greece it ranges from bugger all to bugger me. As luck would have it our school’s PGA is turning out to be one where the members require not only free time and good will but also a large jar of Vaseline and a soft cushion.

Over the Easter holidays we were asked, by the headmistress, if we could possibly do something about the curtains. Fools that we are, flushed with the success of a recent fundraising event we nodded and smiled in dumb acquiescence little suspecting what was in store for us. On reflection we really can’t blame anyone but ourselves, the headmistress must have known what a bunch of pushovers we were having seen us dancing through the streets of Egaleo dressed as cups tables and, in my case, a three tier cake whilst escorting half the schools 112 children to a fancy dress parade, anyway I digress let’s get on with this story.

Before school broke up we did an inspection of the offending drapes to see what "doing something about them" would entail. At this point our amiable smiles became noticeably less pronounced because when you take a good look at curtains your eyes tend to take in other details besides the actual fabric, for example windows. The windows were filthy and, as is the wont of school windows rather large and numerous. It would appear that due to a local council cock-up the cleaners have not been paid for several months, ergo they have not been doing any cleaning beyond keeping toilets usable and floors swept.

Do any of you know of a self-respecting housewife who is capable of hanging clean curtains at dirty windows? If such women exist I am mercifully unacquainted with them. To cut a long story short we had blithely agreed to spend three days of our Easter holidays doing somebody else’s job for no money and little thanks. Last Friday my friend Tina, who is also President of the PGA, called at my house that we might go together to undertake this mammoth task .It was a fairly good litmus test of how the day was due to proceed that she then made me change my clothes THREE TIMES, apparently I wasn’t scruffy enough, eventually having finished my Mrs. Mop does windows fashion parade we collected dusters buckets and assorted children and set off on the short walk to our ultimate destination.

WHY OH WHY DIDN’T WE GAG THE CHILDREN? As we perambulated along the road our kids shouted out to every single sprog along the way and by the time we got to the school gates we looked like particularly perturbed pied pipers of suburbia. This caused another hiatus in the operation whilst we made umpteen phone calls to the mothers of children who had come along to watch the entertainment. Needless to say none of the aforementioned mothers fell over themselves to offer a helping hand, secure in the knowledge that the miraculous maids of their PGA could easily supervise thirty kids from the top of a wobbly ladder.

Ah yes, the ladder. Tell me pray, How it is possible to have a ladder on which all four legs are different lengths. One wobbly leg is not such a problem but what we had here was an implement which only a break dancing circus freak on stilts would appreciate. Tina climbed up to test it, I think she reached the third rung before deciding that she was far too afraid of heights to contemplate the fourth. By this time we had been joined by Irene who, not having had the benefit of Tina’s wardrobe advice, had turned up in an almost floor length skirt and high heeled boots. My turn on the ladder! It was not fun. Imagine a monkey disco dancing on top of a Florida palm tree in a hurricane and you just about have the right mental image for how I must have looked. I can’t say that Tina’s constant litany of “I’m holding it.” Accompanied by Irene’s “you’ve missed a bit.” did anything to improve the situation.

Getting the first set of curtains down was a lot easier, and quicker, than expected, falling off the ladder was a foregone conclusion Tarzan would have been proud of me and if swinging in the classroom isn’t already a song title it should be. I can’t tell you how touched I was by the concern of my dear friends. Irene was practically incapacitated by the humor of the situation as Tina pronounced in concerned tones, “Now we need new curtain hooks”. I need not have fretted though revenge would soon be mine. There is nothing quite so cheering, having been the unwilling star of an unanticipated stunt, as seeing somebody else get theirs. I was therefore positively gleeful when Irene decided that she would show me how things ought to be done. I have already mentioned that this lady was not really dressed for the occasion but undaunted by inappropriate attire she airily tucked her skirt into her knickers and proceeded to climb. I would not have dreamt of telling her as she ascended those unstable steps that there was a whole bevy of bewildered boys peering through the window panes following her progress.

I won’t keep you any longer, though we still had a couple of days worth of work in front of us it would be unkind of me to make you endure the entire debacle and I’m not sure that I can go through the whole episode a second time, not even on paper. Suffice it to say that we now have freshly laundered curtains, at sparkly clean windows, through which the sun is shining on the very dusty classrooms!