Throwing it all away

When I'm not frolicking on a Saturday night, I've been spending my time clearing out the house.

What started as a bit of filing has now turned into an attempt to break the People's Republic of Lambeth's record for the highest number of recycling sacks left out all at once for the collectors. We're up to ten sacks at the moment, and we have three days to go.

My cousin gave me an Australian Flower Remedy combo - Purifying - which has set me off foraging through cupboards and throwing things away.

I'm now thinking about what I'm going to do with my collection of Feng Shui magazines, my old French degree coursebooks, and all the magazines and newspapers I kept when the children were born. What immediately comes to mind is my trusty shopping trolley and the fact that the British Heart Foundation Bookshop is a two minute walk from my abode. And I have another roll of orange sacks.

I am determined to work my way through the house. My old work clothes - even the Jaegar stuff, bed linen from the 1980s, our last pushchair, all the crap my aunt gave us when she cleared out her own house, all the self help books I've bought from the charity shops, and so forth.

I'm even tempted to pack away the cupboard full of crystal we got as a wedding present. What possessed us to want all that stuff when we only use glasses from the supermarket. Why do I need ten plastic mixing bowls, when a couple will do. Mercifully we have an Oxfam furniture shop within dragging distance so they can all go there. The trick will be to escape from the Oxfam shop with an empty trolley.

I have now stopped the arrival of more crap to replace the old stuff. The post is processed on arrival - I attack it like a manky old rottweiler. School letters are digested and immediately binned, and magazines and read and passed on within the week.

We're knee deep in crud at the moment, but it'll be lovely when it's all finished.

Watch this ever increasing space!