Hello, my name's Julie, and I'm a paperphobic.

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”

― Albert Einstein

We have a clean desk policy at the company where I work. It's a high tech industry where protection of company confidential information is treated extremely seriously. Security come round on a regular basis and check whether paperwork or laptops etc are left out, or any drawers are unlocked, and note the names of offenders, who then have to go undergo the shame of a big sticky note on their desk and a trip to security to collect the property in question. Together with working in an environment where pretty much everything has been as paperless as possible for as long as I can remember, I'm therefore used to a clean and decluttered working environment.

I mention this because you probably would not believe it if you saw my home office. The problem is not work clutter, but personal untidiness. You see, my biggest Achilles heel is:

Paperwork.

I can run a multi-national department of 70-odd people. I can deal with multi-million-dollar issues needing resolution, I can deal with an email influx of tens per hour, but ask me whether to keep or bin an old piece of paper, and I'm completely lost.

I dread it more than anything else. Even thinking about it fills me with dread, and the knock of the postman can bring me out in a cold sweat as I glimpse more potential things needing to be dealt with and filed. I can just about cope with paying bills, but once the immediate urgency of that is completed the responding piece of paper floats around my office mocking me and my general uselessness.

I've tried to combat it with more paper, and more lists. I've printed checklists, I have organisers and I've bought box files. Yet still the paperwork mountain evades me.

This weekend, my husband declared enough was enough. For three hours he sifted through the piles of paper on my office floor - sifting, filing, shredding and even opening unopened statements from 2008. The pile has now gone, and a weight has been lifted, for which I will forever be eternally grateful to him.

Since then I've tried to deal with each piece of mail as it has come in- two days in and it's not looking too bad. I'm taking it a day at a time, but I'm still searching for my 12-step programme...

To the Tune of Camptown Races

Oh my house it is a tip, doo dah, doo dah

My mother she would have a fit, doo dah, doo dah

But I really do not give a sh*t, oh de doo dah day

That is all.

Mothers and Daughters - part 1

I love my mother.

You know if I open with a line like that, there is bound to be a "but" following somewhere.

Since I left home at the age of 18, and until just under a year ago, my mother and I had been separated by a 10-hour car journey/2 hour flight/several "low" countries. This seemed to work fairly well for both of us. We saw each other relatively regularly, for a week or so at a time. Then my husband and I had children. My parents were fantastic - they came over and really helped out in those first few horrible sleep-deprived months, but I always knew it was for a limited period each time.

A couple of years down the line, my father retired, and they decided it was time to leave "the continent" and return to Blighty. This had always been the intention, but I suppose the arrival of grandchildren cemented the plan. My father is a Barnsley lad, and we had spent our periods in the UK in Cheshire, but they decided to move "darn Sarf" to be near the grandchildren. Since last May, we therefore now find ourselves within 10 minutes' drive of each other, and it has taken some time to adjust.

My mother and I resemble each other physically, but have always been complete opposites in terms of character. I am more like my father - reserved, introverted, fairly untidy. She is outgoing, bubbly and an OBSESSIVE cleaner. (My dad swears she wasn't like that when he met her, although my grandmother was apparently the same - is it hereditary? If yes, it only manifests itself in later life.)

Earlier this week, I came home from work to find that my parents had been round - they've got a key and have been popping by a fair amount as they are collecting some wood from our garden. I knew this by the fact that my kitchen had been tidied up. So far, so freaky. The thing that really made me fly into a rage, however, was that mum had taken my washing out of the machine, and replaced it with a completely different load. The machine had been on a timer, due to finish when I got back from work. She had taken one look at it, realised the laundry inside was dry, and the machine was "flashing strangely" and assumed something was wrong. Suffice to say, I completely flew off the handle at her (it had not been a good day at work), and managed to reduce her to tears.

I understand that I may come across as completely irrational - she was, after all, only trying to help. To say I felt guilty about going berserk is an understatement. However, I think I might finally have got the point across to her that I am no longer 6 years old (add another 30 to that), and that I am quite happy to wallow in my own chaos. The only question now is - how long is it going to last?...