This is a not edited much repost because – surprise, surprise – two years on and nothing has changed.
Our house crap is right at the back, near to and including the washing machine.
We have a lot of stuff; we have always had a lot of stuff. It didn’t matter in South Africa when the Hub had a warehouse attached to his office: we stored everything there and our home looked lovely. It’s not so great now that we live in a three-bed council house.
Part of the problem is that we hang on to things we might need later on, like every plug from every defunct appliance we’ve ever owned. Bear in mind that it is a legal requirement that every appliance sold in this country must come with an integrated plug – hanging on to those plugs is like letting our older children leave home but keeping their feet in case the next one I give birth to needs spare toes.
Okay, that’s ridiculous; but so is hanging on to twenty-five years’ worth of electric waste.
Having built and filled – and filled, and filled – our garden shed many years ago, the stars finally conjoined one day to give us sunshine, everybody home with nothing to do, and me in a we can do this if we only gird our loins and get on with it mood.
No seams left to burst at
I needed to empty the shed so that I had somewhere to store the clutter from the kitchen which had to be emptied before they gave me a new one. The clutter in the kitchen came from the hall when I painted it. The clutter in the hall came from the lounge when I painted it. The clutter in the lounge came from my inability to tie the Hub to his chair and never let him shop. I didn’t have the heart to put the clutter back into the lounge because I was able to see every wall for the first time since Spud was born. I have been shuffling utter crap from room to room for the whole of my married life, and that day I decided it must STOP.
My family hate when that happens because it means work for them, and they weren’t wrong. We sat the Hub in a comfy chair on the back step so that he could supervise the chucking-out and tell us what he really needed to keep. Spare parts for his never-used scooter could stay because they will come in handy in 2027 when it is forecast we will finally have a dry summer and the scooter will need de-rusting – we’re building our own ark here in Stockport [NOTE: this is as true today as it was two years ago when I wrote it. Can somebody please tell me why we haven’t moved somewhere drier?].
Three huge electric typewriters and seventeen pieces of mouldy mdf were definitely out. A box full of baby toys might have stayed if the boys were ready to make me a grandmother, but I didn’t want to encourage them so they went on the skip pile. An old tent we got from Freecycle years earlier was finally opened up to see if it was of any use. It was: I now have waterproof bicycle and braai covers, albeit bright purple, and three ground sheets. I couldn’t prise a Linguaphone box of 78s from the Hub’s crying arms, but I did manage to sneak out a couple of motorbike forks, and carpet offcuts from a carpet we no longer have, when he was stroking the vinyl and saying Ciao, bella to himself.
*
We finished up with several piles:
- For the council tip (if we ever get there)
- Recycling (how many fly blown cardboard boxes do we really need?)
- Freegling (a wonderful system that allows you to offload your crap onto other people before collecting yet other people’s crap to replace it)
- Charity (people who sell crap to those not clever enough to get it for free)
- To sell (to pay for my broken nails)
- Might come in handy at some point if the Hub can hide them from me (he did; it didn’t)
We moved the stuff in the house that we really wanted to keep, into the shed, where it will no doubt stay for many years, until we get our next sunny day. The kitchen isn’t quite cleared but it’s getting there. The hall isn’t quite cleared but it’s getting there. The lounge – well, you get the idea. I’m doing my best and if it sometimes feels as if I’m holding back an avalanche with sheer will and a roll of bin bags, at least it gives me something to blog about.
Now I bring you back to the present: our old shed is rotten and held together only by the crap the Hub managed to stash away two years ago. We bought a new, bigger, better shed. It arrived last month. It is still in its boxes, going mouldy, because it hasn’t stopped raining long enough to erect it.
It’s a Tardis shed – much bigger on the inside. I hope.
If it doesn’t stop raining soon, we may never know…
Crap: the gift that keeps on giving me a headache.
Sheds: the last great hope of my staying married.
Rain: the divorce-maker.
Anyone got a giant marquee they don’t want? I could give it a good home.
The Hub’s Self-Portrait
Tags: 2012, Clutter, Humor, Humour, postaday, Shed
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