It's coming up to the time of year when everything starts screaming at me, louder than usual, and some things that have been relatively quiet, are restless and begin to complain. Everywhere I look, everywhere I hear imperatives like CLEAN ME, MEND ME, TOSS ME, WIPE ME, FILE ME. I've managed to quell the noise from physical things like silver (don't own it any more), socks (disposable now), programs (left at the theatre for recycling), ornaments, doodads and surfaces (I take off my glasses), and OMG - papers! They do keep piling up. Every few years or so, I send boxes of them to the Archives at the University of Manitoba and that helps, but I have to keep sorting and labelling them. But now, there are new monsters to cope with, virtual messes. The directory on my computer is full of names I no longer recognize. On the other hand, some names have several addresses and the computer refuses to eliminate the incorrect ones. My Bookmarks runneth over. Do I really need all those directions on how to braid my hair? Every recipe I've ever printed out is lurking there waiting to be diluted, I mean, deleted. Letters from people I've been meaning to write are waiting not so patiently and I can't seem to get rid of online flyers and - Heaven preserve the halt, maimed, needy and desperate - the pleas for support on petitions and tiny little donations I'll never miss. Yes, well, multiply a dollar by 100 and I miss it.

Clean-out takes time. It's the first day of March, time for early resolutions about spring cleaning. As always, my fervent wish is for a clone.

Memo to Pat: thank you for your comments. I do appreciate them. I've asked SquareSpace to send a reply but it doesn't work. You'll have to send me your address so I can respond personally.

The nicest thing about deadlines is that when you miss them, they won't bother you again, unless there's a nag in the background ( like the government). That's also the worst thing about deadlines, missing them. So it's the end of a busy month and perhaps a few deadlines have slipped by. Oh dear.

When you're half a Luddite like me, and I won't say which half, we're bound to miss a few things unless we have an alert iPhone or iPad or whatever is the most effective watcher/alarmist. It would be lover-ly to have that at one's fingertips but my fingertips are clumsy. I keep losing passwords and addresses and I bog down trying to enter essential information into all these gorgeous, efficient time-savers on the market and in our homes now. But the technical equipment doesn't come with a Person to load in your co-ordinates and all the fiddly details that make your day work.

Years ago in Winnipeg when we were all young mothers with babies, I attended a mother-daughter party, without our children, a festive occasion, a girls' day off. One of our mothers commented on how efficient we all were without any help. One of my friends who had four children protested.

"Oh, but we have help," she said. "We have all these machine - washers and dryers - that do the work for us."

"My dear," said the older woman. "It's so much easier to say to someone (imperiously):

GO, and wash the clothes!"

Yup.