Hoovers, dogs and a spot of rain

Today I decided to hoover my car. Well, I never actually decided to do it, as I would've definitely changed my mind and decided not to. One minute I was walking home from the supermarket, the next I was sprawled between the front and back seats of the motor with a hose under my armpit.

It was shockingly filthy; I’ve hoovered it once before, so am no stranger to the maddening, unreachable gaps between the handbrake and seats which, since 1990, have been the belly-button equivalent of the Honda.

Surely the sensible thing would be to make everything detachable so you can hoover a carpeted square-like box, then clip everything back in. Though no doubt that would lead to safety issues when, for example, you didn't secure the driver’s seat and ended up driving from the boot or forgot to put the gear-stick back in. Besides, there’d probably be some law whereby you’d have to enlist a mechanic to undertake the entire hoover job which would be an expensive exercise. But think how clean and it would be!

At some recent and considerably lengthy period of its service, this particular Honda has provided shelter and transport for what one can only presume was a large wire-haired dog. In fact, the further under the front seat I hoovered, the hairier the floor became and it flashed through my tiny mind for a brief second that the creature was possibly still there, in a secret metal dog-well between the carpet and road, existing on dropped apple cores and rain water at traffic lights.

After 20 minutes of dog-hating hard hosing, ungainly clambering and wretched seat-manoeuvring, it suddenly dawned on me: this is why people have children! 10p well spent, I’ll say. Cursing all dogs and nearby children who I could hear playing – yes, shamelessly playing! - in their gardens when they could have been helping me, suddenly, as luck would have it, it started to rain.

Now, you don’t need to be or even know a mechanic to know that hoovers and rain don’t mix. So in a great hurry, I packed up and resigned to finish the job later. Though I think the forecast is bad. Shame for the kids stuck indoors, too.