From time to time when there is nothing much on the television I watch the occasional make over show. This is a vice of which I am rather ashamed but I find them rather entertaining if a trifle far fetched. The bits that interest me are the de cluttering sections of the shows where the expert enters a house full of a life times acquisitions, photo graphs souvenirs and other family mementoes and objects de art and leaves it “much improved” and looking like a furniture show room. I am always left wondering how long the cream sofa and carpet will remain cream with a family of four children, two dogs and a granny in the house. These small details are never allowed to interfere with the flow of the designers flair and I am left wondering where all the clutter would have gone had not the family been fortunate enough to own a garage the size of a small department store!
I have moved house a total of ten times in the last forty years and each time I assure myself that never again will I cram my house full of odds and ends, no matter how useful, and that I shall religiously throw away any item which has remained unused for twelve months. It is , I am sure the nature human beings to hoard and store away the likes of Grannies copper bed warmer, or great great aunt Matilda,s rocking hours which has lain in the attic for years or Grandpa's disreputable old pipes. I am convinced that these makeover show types are the secret owners on antique shops which of course will benefit enormously from the chuck it out and buy new stuff dogma which they constantly preach.
Every one of us at some time or other have parted company, reluctantly with some long treasured but totally useless article and then discovered that it was worth good money having seen a similar article on The Antiques Road Show, purchased at a Church bazaar for pennies. How we gasp when we hear that this unprepossessing item is worth several hundred pounds. It is worth remembering that for every lucky person who finds such a treasure there is a hapless twerp who threw it out in the first place.
By now I expect that you are wondering why I am banging on in this fashion,the reason is simply this, I find myself once again cluttered up with too much junk. You see I am one of those people who buy lots of stuff for pennies at Church Bazaars, unfortunately non if the things I purchase ever turn out to be priceless.
Yesterday I emptied my huge old desk and it is certain that the much smaller new one( actually it is second hand) will not hold the same amount of stuff. I hasten to add that not all of the clutter is my own. Both Pa and my son are in the habit of loading my room, my desk and my wardrobe with things they do not have room for but which might one day come in handy. Even as we speak there are several huge boxes of Scalextric lurking down the side of my wardrobe, several chess sets in my drawers and a very large compendium of games under my bed. Since I am not allowed to throw out these seldom if ever used objects I shall have to part company with some of my own treasures....deep sigh!
I have only one consolation in the middle of all this decision making and it is this, there will certainly be no priceless antiquities amongst my things to worry about.......but just in case our Church bazaar is on the second Sunday in July..... you can never be sure, can you?
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