I confess that I am a bit of a hoarder, in fact I am a lot of a hoarder, only surpassed by my husband who has developed his hoarding skills to world class standard. I don’t know why wehoard, but it has been suggested that it is more common among people who have experienced significant loss, and I think there could be some truth in that.  My grandmother’s influence may also have turned me into a hoarder, she had known poverty, war and rationing and it taught her not to waste anything.

We don’t live in a huge house, so we really need to get to grips with some of the more ridiculous examples of hoarding. I had a stern word with myself on the subject yesterday when I was folding the towels from the tumble dryer. A frayed and tired looking pink towel emerged and I realised that I had bought that towel when I was only a little older than my daughter is now, so that makes it well over 20 years old, closer to 25! It has seen so many family milestones and family holidays but ultimately it is just a towel and it has to go. My grandma would have cut it up to make cleaning cloths but these days we use paper towels for jobs like that, so it will be heading for the rag bin at the recycling centre. Come to think of it my grandma even cut up ’smalls’ to use as floor cloths or polishing cloths, but in those days ’smalls’ were not exactly small!

I have already been fairly brutal with my wardrobe, on the principle that if it doesn’t fit it doesn’t stay, but there is still more work to do. In fact if I part with everything that doesn’t fit comfortably I will be left with very little to wear!. I keep things that are a bit tight because I aspire to be thinner, but I also aspire to be taller and I probably have as little chance of achieving the former as the latter. It seems to take all my effort just to maintain my present weight but if one day I achieve a more sylph like figure it will be such a huge achievement that I will reward myself with a whole new wardrobe. Until then, if it doesn’t fit it doesn’t stay.

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Well, that is the easy bit, now to confess the clutter that I can’t bear to part with. Books! I am terribly possessive about books and I simply can’t bear to part with them. Outside our bedroom door we have a huge bookcase that reaches all the way up to the ceiling. It is full of children’s books, all grown out of long ago, but all loved and cherished and far too precious to part with. Sometimes I find myself walking upstairs and stopping at the bookcase to look at one of the books and to remember those precious days when the children were younger. That bookcase is just the tip of the iceberg, more children’s books are crated up and stored under my son’s bed (to stop him stuffing all his junk under there) and believe it or not I donated about 8 crates of books to a small school last year!

We all have bookcases in our bedrooms and all are overflowing, My husband’s railway books and magazines intrude into every room, not to mention his collections of compact discs, vinyl records, model trains and assorted track paraphernalia. There’s no alternative, the books and belongings are taking over the house so we will have to buy a tent and live in the garden!