Itchy feet has advantages. For a while Louise and I were moving house every year (or less). It was just the way things panned out when we were down south. We rented at first, then bought a flat and then a year later decided to sell it (not sure it was a full year either), so back to rented accomodation we went.
The advantage is that we don’t have much in the way of ‘extraneous stuff’. Other than the trappings of materialism – DVDs, CDs, books and the like – we aren’t hoarders by nature, or at least not long term hoarders. Eventually the emotional tie to an object will be broken and it’ll get turfed out, maybe to Oxfam if it’s still in good nick, maybe sold in the local paper or maybe just taken to the skip. We both seem to run on a similar ‘purge’ schedule meaning that when one of us decides that they are going to tidy out their books, the other will think “Yeah I should go through my wardrobe and do that too”.
And so we did. Most of Sunday was spent deciding, sorting, tidying, binning, and collecting. All sorts of stuff. Oxfam will get a nice big bag of clothes and a box of books, all in good order. The recycle bin is now full, as is the regular bin. The house is tidy and organised, and I’m now noticing that we’ve yet to put photos in THAT frame for above THERE, and those shelves for THERE are still sitting up stairs waiting to be fitted. Plenty of time for that though.
Sometimes I do wish we held onto a few more things, sentimental things, the type you find in most attics and lofts across the land. But we don’t, a box of photos and a few old toys is about all the sentimentality we can muster. They lie in the loft, carefully boxed, waiting to bore future generations. Relics of a time gone past, where REAL things held our attention. “Let me show you a photo” I’ll say. The child will turn to the nearest screen and watch for it appearing, only to be bewildered when I produce a paper like rectangle with a picture on it.