Saturday 7th June - this and that

Decluttering - there are some truly weird 'methods' put there;

I culled this little list from a magazine article a week or so ago;

People in glass houses (me) shouldn't throw stones, and to be fair I've tried x number of things a day for a week/month, and x number of books from every bookshelf - or nearly every bookshelf  - or created a kind of scavenger hunt.

In the end it boils down to just getting on with it. We are doing a huge exercise in 'letting go of  things' as we clear my parent's flat. I began to learn this lesson when clearing my godmother's house at the very beginning of 2020; just because something was precious and meaningful for her, in her 94 years of life, didn't automatically mean it had to be precious and meaningful for me. 

I'm hanging on to things which I treasure for my childhood memories, but I'm not sure that the mug from my grandmother's cupboard has any relevance for my own children, who never met her anyway. 

.....

Oddly enough it's programmes like 'Flog-it' that have been helpful. 

'Why are you selling your grandmother's bracelet, given to her by her husband on their wedding day?' he asks.

'I never wear it, and someone else might like it instead of just leaving it in a box in a drawer' she says.

That sounds like good sense.

.....

It must be some kind of cosmic universal rule, that although you have almost every size of drill bit, the one you need is missing. I expect it is in the same place as the blue food storage box which matches the stray lid in the 'tupperware' bag.

......

Music; 

I mainly listened to classical music all through my youth and later; I must have been the only girl at my school who didn't watch Yop of the Pops every week. 

I'm aware of the songs of the 70s, 80s, 90s in a vague, foggy way. My little radio was permanently tuned to Radio 3. 

But there were a few exceptions when I got to university; Simon and Garfunkel, Carol King, Leonard Cohen and Ralph McTell. I loved RMcT's story telling, and his gentle voice, and lovely guitar playing. Here's one of my favourites, called Barges.

When the children were young, about 7 and 8, I used to gather up a flask of coffee, rug and book for me, snacks, drinks and an empty margarine tub each for the children and set up camp by the stream that goes through the little woodland behind the houses. We'd find a bit where it was fairly broad and shallow - there well some dangerously deep pools further along, and spend a couple of peaceful hours in the Summer holiday afternoons.