Time to recycle

I once tried not to buy anything new for a whole year...I lasted 5 days! So much for my year of austerity.  I caved in because I saw an eyeshadow that I knew would change my life. I love recycling, it gives me a sense of doing something worthy.  We've always brought second hand furniture (BH says Antiques), but the effect is the one we're always after.  A great afternoon for me is a wander around the Junk (antique) shops, in the hope of a great find.

It's not for me, the expedition to Ikea, although I do like their napkins....and the meatballs with gravy and cranberry sauce!  BH gets palpitations in Ikea, and pulls at the neck of his shirt.  I can tell he's getting a bit angsty, so I divert him with a plate of herrings and smoked salmon.

Years ago, I was a regular car boot attendee.  I'd take a fiver, and give Bart £1, and off we'd go on a Sunday morning (before rugby took over our lives), I'd find great books, great dresses, and great crap...I once bought two beautiful armchairs for £5 because they hadn't sold for £200...and I pushed them home one of them with Bart sitting it, while I phoned BH to come and get the other. He was angry and mortified at the request, and demanded to know why I wanted them when we clearly had enough chairs!

When we were kids, my brothers and I would love going to the local jumble sale. Ma would give us some money and we'd come home with an abundance of stuff (rubbish). Everyone would get a gift.  Ma would get an ornament, that someone had decided was total tat, otherwise they wouldn't have given it away.  Pa would get some smelly old books.  We'd be sitting on the floor of the church hall flicking through the comics and books that were almost 50 years old. We once bought an early edition Alice in Wonderland.  The tracing paper covering the ink drawings were still intact.  It took pride of place in my bedroom, until one day I realised that it had gone.  Transpires that big bro swapped it for an Afghan coat...I've never forgiven him for that!  Very often, we'd have to buy a pram to push all our crap back. Ma would appear delighted with our purchases, but I know secretly she would donate them all back. A couple of times I saw  our things at the jumble sale. She hadn't asked for permission to donate so I would feel duty bound to buy them back.

I remember, the smell and I can feel the excitement.  The table were stacked high with clothes.  The book stall was always the one we would run to first. Little bro developed a passion for bibles and would collect all that he could find.  We did wonder whether he may divert his attentions to a secular faith, but no, he became something in IT.  I remember the home made cakes and the tea stall.  We'd always buy the cakes to take home for tea, and the ladies would throw in a couple of extra bits for these very strange ragamuffins who appeared to take delight in their wares, and we'd munch them on the way home.

We don't see many Jumble Sales any more.  Most of my stuff I donate to the charity shop or the local hospice.  I know it will be going to a good cause but for some reason I donate when they're close.  I leave the bag outside the shop, probably because I'm embarrassed to be donating such rubbish, and I worry they may drag out the items piece by piece, turn their noses up and tell me to take them down the tip...but if it wasn't rubbish I wouldn't be donating it, now would I?

I've decided that I have to do some major sorting out.  We can barely move in our house for all of the crap we have accumulated.  Toys, clothes, books, magazines (OK,  the books are not crap...but I have no intention in reading them again, so why do I hang onto them? )  but I don't need any of it, so why am I reluctant to dispose of it all.  What with all the bags of clothes in the spare room, I now have boxes of ornaments, old pans, sheets that I've had since year dot one, and an array of curtains.

So maybe it's now time for a car boot?