Gemma Cartwright writes...

This weekend I woke up, took one look at my living room and decided it was time for some serious action. I'm 24 but still living in what amounts to a student house. It's not that my housemates are particularly messy - in fact I'm a hundred times worse than either of them - but we all work long hours or strange shifts and rarely have time to do much more than the washing up. So on a rare Saturday with nothing to do, I started cleaning. And cleaning. And cleaning a bit more.

Four hours later I'd removed the corpse of a dead mouse (don't ask) dusted, wiped and vacuumed every surface, washed the sofa covers, rearranged the whole room, thrown away everything from scabby cushions to Argos catalogues from 2005 (I didn't move in until 2006) and lit overpriced scented candles. My housemate came home and uttered "Oh my God. I had the worst day and this has just made it so much better!"

Sadly, this was something of a one-off. I will never be a proper domestic goddess. I have my moments; I can bake killer chocolate macaroons, my paella is legendary and my friends still talk about my cocktail parties. I cannot cope with a dirty kitchen and go a bit mental with the bleach spray. I own ridiculous things like floral patterned cake stands and a smoothie maker and have two tubs of ready-made frosting in my fridge 'just in case'.

I have occasional fits of Stepford Wifedom when I'm alone and bored, but when it comes to cleaning and tidying, I've never really got the hang of it. Perhaps because my mother is a clean freak of epic proportions, I've taken the other route. I live in a constant state of creative mess. I'm not so untidy that there are things living under the bed (look, the mouse was a one-off and I blame my pet hamster for it) but I do like to hoard glasses and pile my clothes haphazardly around my room in fits of 'I have nothing to wear' rage, where they will remain until I have a chance to hang them up again, bemoaning the fact they don't fit me properly thanks to all those cakes.

Thing is, seeing my lovely new living room, sans dust, dirt and manky cushions has got me thinking. Maybe I can actually grow up and start being neat and tidy finally? Yesterday I suggested we take down the posters that adorn our walls and replace them with my own ink and paint fashion illustrations. Forget the fact I haven't done any since the days of A' level art. Drawing is like riding a bike, surely? You never really forget.

My next aim is to make our garden tolerable. Right now we're afraid the triffids might attack...