We’ve been selling off a lot of stuff on local Facebook pages in order to not have to pay someone to move it next month. It’s been everything from kallax shelves to cowboy boots and gardening tools. When we put it with two truck loads of junk from the garden we’ve already had removed, it’s a hell of a lot of stuff. In a strange twist, we sold some shelves to a woman who told us she used to live here a long time ago. Weird.
Still it's not like the place is half empty, in fact, though it looks different, there’s plenty of stuff that we’re taking. We’ve got to tackle the attic yet. Not looking forward to that. The junk is mixed with the stuff we want to take. I don't know how we’ll get everything down because I can’t use my left arm or hand.
When we’re in this mode of selling off things we’re always likely to throw out or sell something we later need. This is the root cause of our hoarding. Keeping things just in case at some point in the future they might be useful. We’ve just resolved to buy anything we need when we need it.
Do you do that? As the years go by, you can acquire a lot of junk waiting to be useful. I’m donating ;oads of books tomorrow. As you might expect I have generations of Record Collector valuation books and Billboard and NME chart books, none of which are needed now because all the info is freely available online. So they’re all going. I’m keeping my books of photos of every release on Purple Records but most things are going.
I’m determined that the ‘acquiring’ habit does not repeat itself in future. It’s gotten totally out of control. You realise that when you come across a massive box of magazines from 1993 that I didn’t even know we had let alone have looked at, or a big box of VHS tapes which of course I’ve not even the ability to play. Only thing I’m nervous of dumping is my old cassettes from 1980. They’re probably unplayable but they represent a period of time to me. But what do I do with them? Look at them? They’ve been in the loft for 6 years so I obviously don’t crave to do that. It’s objectively unsustainable as a lot of these things are.
Right, back into battle. Now what do we do with 3 knitting machines and a DigiTech Vocalist Workstation!
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2 comments
Ey up John,
Glad to hear things are moving along for you regarding your move.
I know what you mean about stuff in the loft. about 20 years ago I put some loft boards down in our loft; that seemed to be all the rage in DIY stores back, and was seen to be the solution to storage worries.
However, twenty odd years later, I wish I never had.
The amount of junk up there is ridiculous, even though I have got rid of a fair bit of it over the last couple of years; also I’m now reading that compressing the loft insulation under boards is not a good idea. I wish someone had told me that 20 odd years ago!
Basically, the more space you have the more space you fill; in our case in addition to the loft, there’s also what was once a ‘garden room’ a shed and a conservatory!
Having said that, I have started being more ruthless as regards getting rid of stuff.
My wife isn’t quite as bad as me, I will freely admit to being a bit of a hoarder, especially when it comes to old bicycle components for some reason!
Mind you, she can be a bit over-zealous when it comes to bagging up stuff for the charity shop – she can’t understand why I like to keep certain books after I’ve read them! I like to see a bookshelf with books on it!
By the way, I loved your article on Clapton a while back; both insightful and witty, it had me chuckling actually!
We’ve discussed him via email before, and I agree with you, after ‘74, creatively he’d burnt himself out.
Hope the move continues to progress
All the best
Ian
Derby
Hire someone to bring down stuff from the attic for you. Neither of you need an injury doing so.
🥰