“My idea of superwoman is someone who scrubs her own floors.”

“Scrubbing the floor when no one else wanted to was something that my mother would have done. If I can't be with her, the least I can do is act like her sometimes.”

“My idea of vacuuming is borrowing someone's dog for the day and having them eat all the crap off the floor.”

“I know what you're thinking - that anybody with proper sensitive feelings would rather scrub floors for a living. But I should scrub floors very badly, and I write detective stories rather well. I don't see why proper feelings should prevent me from doing my proper job.”

“Her expression falls slightly as she senses that my walls are up and she's not nearly strong enough to climb over. Not even today when she is leukaemia's version of Superwoman.”

“The ochre-yellow linoleum floor hasn't been scrubbed for some time; splotches of dirt bloom on it like grey pressed flowers.”