Yesterday I decided that I just had to do something about the state of my husband’s ‘study’. When we were looking for a house last time we moved he said that he really had to have a study so that he would have somewhere to do school work but mainly to get away from the kids and get down to some writing. So he got a study, quite a big room, and over the years he has filled it with ‘stuff’. He was supposed to clean it out in the summer of 2010, it didn’t happen! Then again in summer 2011 and I did say to him that it was just as well that the desk is right at the door as I couldn’t get any further into the room, so I couldn’t even open the window. His solution to that problem was that he went in and squashed all the things that were lying about the floor into a pile in the middle of the room. So there was a feature ’roundabout’ to be negotiated around.

Being a typical Scottish man he isn’t into cleaning and a whole year can quite easily go by without him wielding the Hoover and expecting him to use a duster would just be asking for trouble. So this is where the stoor, oose and glaur come in. It’s what you get if you don’t dust and vacuum clean.

stoor is dust and general muck, and rhymes with sure.
oose is dust which is so thick it’s positively furry and dust bunny-ish, it rhymes with moose.
glaur is dirt, and it rhymes with for.

The other phrase which comes to mind – and I’m not at all sure if this is a Scottish one is:

You could stir it with a stick.

Maybe someone could tell me if that phrase is used elsewhere. It’s very commonly used in Scotland when a person is appalled at the state of their own house. You could stir ma hoose wi’ a stick!

So anyway, that’s why I went a wee bit mental yesterday and just got stuck into it all. The recycle paper bin is nearly full of such things as lecture notes from 1971-1978 and many books and bits of scientific equipment are making their way to a school science department.

Why there was an AA card (Automobile Association not Al Anon!) from 1981 amongst the piles of detritus on the desk is a mystery never to be solved. We moved here in 1988!

I’m about two thirds of the way through it all now and I can see most of the carpet! I blame myself for being too easy going.

My husband says that I need a right good skelpin’ for saying things like this about him and his study. I’d just like to see him try!