Dealing With The Past

A post from 13 years ago.

IDLE THOUGHTS

The alarm goes off at 7am and I hit the snooze button.

7:05am RINGGG! I'm wondering what to do about the vintage Orange Order collarette in the attic. I hit the snooze button.

7:10am RINGGG! Trying to figure out the names of Adam Lambsbreath's cows in Cold Comfort Farm. Let me see - there's Pointless, Aimless, Feckless and what is the other one called? I hit the snooze button.

7:15am RINGGG! Pondering the minister's reading at yesterday's funeral service. Dorcas/Tabitha. Would those be good names for girl twins? Technically they are the same name just as Zoe and Eve are. I hit the snooze button.

7:20am RINGGGG!!!! There's this clairvoyant in Randalstown I'm going to later. She channels through an eel. Holy shit! I'm dreaming! Time to get up.

An unpublished one from 9 years ago

Every couple of years I clear the attic but this clearing has to the best one yet. I do have sticking places. Anything that came from Matty's house and all that old loyal orders paraphernalia that belonged to Bert's uncles. What happened to Johnny's stuff? He must have returned it to the lodge when it was dissolved. Uncle Andy died in harness or should that be in collarette?

Banjo Man came in and I was telling him about my efforts to declutter,

I don't know what I'm going to do with all that old loyal orders stuff.

Would somebody not want it? The lodge maybe, part of their history?

All those lodges are no more.

What about Ploppy Pants?

Not his thing. He's independent.

Doesn't seem right to throw it out. I know its not our culture but...

I know. Showing respect and all that..

Or...

What?

You could just burn it.

The Present Day

So what did I do? I packed up Andy's white gloves, apron and collarette and donated them to a charity shop in Harryville. The lady in charge was delighted as she had a customer who collected that kind of memorabilia.

Showing respect and all that. We still have several framed certificates in the attic. They are rather large and the frames are in poor condition. I expect we'll leave them for the next generation to worry about.

Straidkilly Nature Reserve

 

This was a day of two halves. I completed one of the tasks I set myself on the decluttering project. As I said to Bert,

When I'm overwhelmed, I feel I've achieved something when I shelve all the books alphabetically.

And please note that I also dusted those shelves. Good job!

The second half of the day consisted of a trip to Straidkilly Nature Reserve where Bert, myself and all three dogs went for a jolly good hike. It was my first visit. Hannah had intimated that I'd find it rather tough as many of the trails are hard going. No bother to me at all! I had my Blundstones and a stout stick.

The only downsides were me getting bit by a cleg (horsefly) and the other small matter of losing a tooth, I don't even want to say how that happened as it was so stupid.

A Productive Day

 

Hannah and I went to town, recycled children's books and clothing at the council yard then went for a drive on Ballymena's newest road which is rather lovely as it goes past the Ecos centre where it is lined with trees. Then to Tescos to offload my more readable books, Ian Rankin, Sarah Waters - that kind of thing. And who should I bump into but Mrs The Wee Manny who was donating her cookery books as she only uses online recipes these days. She was feeling rather frazzled as her two pups (Cleo's litter mates) have destroyed her garden and are eating her nicest clothes. Then there is her geriatric dog who keeps collapsing on his own stool and thus needs frequent baths. Thank goodness for her lovely hubby who gives her no bother at all. We hope to see them all over the July holidays.

Then we went to the Costa on the Larne Road link. My second visit, my first was with Vinny when we shared a lemon curd tart. My mouth has often watered thinking of it. Today I ate a whole one and it was delightful. The clientele at that Costa is awfully middle-class. People-watching is far more interesting in Grafters.

When I got home I spent a rainy half-hour slashing and hacking in the garden. Filled one barrow for the compost heap. I wonder if I can blame Cleo for the disaster in the garden should my cousin call. I'm not sure she'll buy it as there are giant weeds there from before the pup was born.

How goes the decluttering? I'm still in my bedroom but it is emptying out nicely. Books were the biggest issue there. They are being gathered together and will be sorted in days to come. 

To fuck with the housework

Too Much Stuff

 

I knew my cousin was visiting Ireland from NZ sometime this summer and was hoping she might visit. Even so, I was surprised to read yesterday that she was en route to Belfast. It must be summer already. I look out the window at the wreckage of my once-lovely garden. I gaze around my house - at grubby windows, spider's webs, clutter. I need to look lively and there is only one thing to do - get on the internet and research decluttering sites.

The first one advises to approach the problem room by room. I've tried that before and it doesn't work. The stuff just get pushed around from room to room. A second site goes for a whole house approach, the first step being to remove clutter from every room starting at the top of the house. I've not tried that before so I'll give it a go. 

End of day report. I have removed clutter from two spare bedrooms and got halfway through my bedroom. There are two bin bags of clothing and two boxes of books in the boot of the car for recycling and there are seven boxes of unsorted stuff on the landing.

I spent 90 minutes (between downpours) in the garden mostly hacking and sweeping. Two full barrowloads of compost material have been removed and 12 potentilla Miss Willmott discovered and potted on. Don't know where I'm going to put them but hey-ho, problem for another day. 

I just have too much stuff and too many plants and that leads to cobwebs and weeds. See that blanket in the pictures above. I bought that in Camerons decades ago. It dates from a time when I had hardly any disposable income and I spent about £25 on it. Of course, I still have it. The young lady in the photograph is grown up now, and sweet little Polly dog is long gone. In the second photograph, there is Holly de Cat (no longer with us) and a ridiculous fabric teddy that I picked up in a charity shop. It had no eyes, I was going to give it eyes, but never did and eventually, donated it back to a charity shop. The black bear, Boris from Hamleys (no relation) I bought from a stall in the original Fair Hill half a lifetime ago. I still have him. I'm not sure why. 

Tomorrow I hope to get rid of the contents of my car boot and clear the landing and, Oh God! you should see the attic...

Anyway, here is another one of my carefully positioned photographs of a literal corner of my yard that makes it look as if this place is lovely.

Jamie Ya Bollix

Started clearing out my scullery cupboards yesterday using the recommended decluttering method, which is 5 boxes designated as follows,

1. Bin
2. Recycle
3. Donate
4. Mend
5. Restore to Proper Place

By far the fullest box was Restore to Proper Place and the emptiest, containing one piece of cardboard, was Recycle. This tells me that I am very good at recycling and very bad at restoring items to the proper place.

I'd hoped to have a really full donation box as the cupboards I was decluttering are the ones where I keep my fancy vintage china. It wasn't easy to part with it. I managed to donate a couple of vases, two bowls and an outsized mug belonging to Hannah. The rest I kept, including three butter dishes with lids in various styles from hand-painted to Pyrex. I toyed with donating the Old Foley but after checking eBay prices realised that it could fetch a sum between £2.50 to £33 so thought better of it.

Today is the day I pick up the girls from school so I packed my box of bits and pieces for delivery to the nearest charity shop. Whilst there I bought four cookery books (50p each) and Evie chose a mug for herself (20p). The cookery books were in very good condition, three Jamies and a Nigella. Evie and I browsed them in the schoolyard whilst we awaited Martha's release. I was especially taken by Jamie's 15 Minute Meals. What a challenge! I can make poached egg and toast in 15 minutes but Jamie can do marvels. Apparently, the secret is having the right equipment and a very well-stocked pantry. He's a helpful soul is Jamie and he provided a list of all the essential store cupboard ingredients a person should have to hand. Just one hundred and twenty-six items. This included 13 types of dried pasta, 11 kinds of nuts and 13 ready-made sauces. Nine kinds of tinned food must be available and as no one is going to have just one tin of anything I'd say that would bring the necessary items to over 150. Either I get rid of all that crockery or a new pantry is needed.

But - Jamie says that there is no point in serving up all this delicious, nutritious food if it's dished up on random, everyday plates and bowls. He advises using painted boards or vintage crockery from flea markets. Doesn't have to be expensive y'see. Now the painted board thing. Not happening in this house. I'd serve the chow on them just the one time and later on that evening Bert would have them in the wood-burning stove. Looks like the vintage crockery is staying and, as I've probably already got around half of Jamie's recommended pantry list, all I need is to shop for the 75 items I haven't got and a two-tier bamboo steamer for all the dim sum I'll be making. 

Sparking Joy

I've not read the Marie Kondo book but I've heard all about it and these days it's practically the same thing as reading it. For instance, I know that if you're decluttering you should pick up an item and ask yourself this question,

Does this spark joy in my heart?

And if the answer is no, then chuck it, recycle it, give it away or whatever.

I can go one better than this. I ask myself the question before I even buy the damn thing. Consequently, I am coming home with ever lighter bags. A good thing as I am still awaiting my pension.

When I was in my twenties and thirties I was very attracted to vintage items. Old jugs, patchwork quilts, ancient books, and maps - that sort of thing. I still have a lingering affection for such items but not as much as before. A few evenings ago, looking at the bookcases in this room I said to my daughter,

When I was young I would have thought it heaven to have a wall of bookshelves and all those books. 

(There more than a 1000 books on those shelves and that's just in one place. There are hundreds more in other rooms)

Bookshelves

And see all those jugs on the top shelf?

(There are twenty-one. There are even more in other rooms and some stored away)

When I had just two that I picked up in the Fair Hill market back when you all were little - those two gave me more pleasure than all the ones I've gathered since. Now I find that they mean very little to me.

 My first jug

And now I find myself looking at things, things that have hung on walls or sat on chests for a decade or more and I wonder why they are still there. Nowadays when I go into shops that sell vintage items I am interested in what I see but it is like being in a museum. I want to look at the item, think about it but I do not want to possess it. Perhaps it is a part of growing older?

Two More In The Box

Three more boxes of books hit the recycling bins this afternoon but not before Bert pulled one out. It was a book on submariners in the Second World War. I thought he'd read it. I finished Lucky by Alice Sebold this morning. It began with a harsh description of a brutal rape which was hard to bear but as I persevered with Alice's story I found it gripping and uplifting and a well written book that I'm glad to have read.

My second choice was a slim book called Leaving Riverton by Jodie Something. It doesn't matter that I cannot remember the author's name as her writing was stiff and dreary and I won't be wasting any time on it. Straight into the box for disposal.

In other news the Catching Myself On project is going well. I have lost 5 pounds and am feeling a whole lot better.

Too Many Books

Staying for now

Thursday There are too many books in this house and too many bookshelves as well. I have three bookshelves in the spare room, one in the bedroom, two in the hall, one in the attic and a wall of shelves in my private, secret sitting room. There is a pile of books on Bert's bedside table and another pile on mine. Far, far too many books.

So I have decided to cull them. I've been off loading as I read for about a year now but am finding it far more difficult to deal with the books that have been sitting around for decades without ever having been read.

I'll need to live until I'm at least eighty to read all these books if I go through them at the rate of one per week. It also needs to be taken into account that I'll want to read books I haven't bought yet. Heck, I'll want to read books that haven't even been written yet! This is the plan. Lift a few from the shelves, glance at them, then choose one and read twenty pages. If it turns out to be tedious get rid of it at once but if it intrigues, finish it, then get rid.

I chose Lucky by Alice Sebold and shall let you know how I get on with it.

Meanwhile here is a rough guide to what went into the recycling boxes.

There were about thirty that I'd two or more copies of. Mostly classics.
All plays except for the complete works of the Bard.
Stacks of crime fiction as they are mostly all the same.
Anything by Alexander McCall Smith.
Lots of old history books.
Everything about Dora the Explorer and Spot the Dog.
Herman Melville for if I ever feel the need I'll get it on audiobook.
Surplus books on birds and the like. How many bird books does a person need? I've still got too many.
A novel by Jill Tweedie that I've never read which for some reason depresses me every time I look at it.
Chick lit with embarrassing covers.
All books about dieting. There were only about three.
Ancient book on palmistry printed to cheap paper.
Pearlie's tattered school books.
Shabby copy of The Origin of the Species. I will never read that from cover to cover. Ditto famous tomes by J.S. Mill and Adam Smith.
All sociology classics, Captive Wife, Street Corner Society etc.
All seriously out of date ECDL and computer manuals.
Christian books except Bible and few improving Sunday School prizes that belonged to Pearlie and need further investigation. Such books fascinate me.
Nancy Drew series. If Martha and Evie ever want to read those they can get them at the library.

Friday. I have completely cleared two bookshelves and have only the ancient books, cookery books and Irish Interest books to go through. There are seven good sized boxes of surplus literature to be re-homed. Bert wouldn't let me throw out any of the D.G. Hessayan books, not even the one on lawns. He also refused to part with any books on pruning.

I'm about a quarter through Lucky and it is so harrowing that I had great difficulty getting to sleep last night.

Moving on

Good Intentions

New Year is often full of good intentions which, as the year progresses, fall by the wayside. I have good intentions. I've let my walking slip and I eat and drink too much. I'm actually drinking a glass of wine as I write this and I'm in the middle of making a trifle. The thing about eating and drinking too much is that I'm way too old for that sort of carry-on. It would be very sweet to see Martha, Evie and James reach voting age.

So, Jazzer and I set a date. The 11th of January. That is when we are going to up the exercise and lower the scoffing and imbibing. I've started already with the daily walks and have noticed already that my pace is improving. It can only get better.

In other news I decided to streamline the books. An hour I spent at that today and managed to put three in the recycling box. There are masses of books on my shelves that I have yet to read and as many again that I'd like to re-read. Perhaps that should be another good intention. Read more books. Another reason to live at least another eighteen years. Wish me luck!

Her Last Drink

My current obsession is hoarding behaviour, the American TV series Hoarders and tossing my own hoard. It's rather wonderful. I watch a little bit of Hoarders and I am inspired to throw out some object I've clung on to for far too long. I don't want to end up like those poor American folks, although I can see I'm going to have to be careful about the animal hoarding. Four dogs, two cats and two pigs - that is Nellybert at the limit.

A friend of mine is helping an elderly relative declutter her house. During the process a cardboard box of assorted glassware was unearthed. The elderly relative said,

Dinnae throw those out! There's a special glass amongst those. It's the glass that Davy's mother took her last drink out of.

Davy's mother was this old girl's mother-in-law and Davy was her husband dead himself this forty years or more.

I told this to Bert.

Imagine! Clinging on to an oul glass because your mother-in-law took her last drink out of it!

I wonder what her last drink was?

Some class of poison? That might explain the sentimental attachment.

Clearing My Head

The right side of the attic

I'm not very 'feng shui' in the attic department. Apparently it's supposed to be hard to look forward to the future when there's so much clutter "hanging over your head." I don't want my children to have to go up there and deal with all that shite when I'm not able to. My father had the right idea. He did not allow anything to be stored in the roof space. But then he did have lots of big sheds. We have sheds too but they are Bert's and they aren't as dry as Daddy's were.

I always wanted an attic and was determined we'd have an accessible one when this house was being renovated. In the story books I read as a child they were always exciting places full of treasure. You'd open a trunk and it would be full of the most wonderful things from the olden days. There would be ivory fans, embroidered shawls and silken dresses your Granny used to wear. There would be hand written journals and carvings and mysterious old photographs. There would be beads and toys and ancient maps.

Not so in my childhood home. Granny's old dresses ended up as cleaning rags and the only thing in our attic was spiders and flittery things like bats and trapped birds.

The left side of the attic

There is no Victorian or Edwardian treasure in my attic. For sure there are old things up there - the detritus of generations. Bert's old pram is there. Pearlie's amazing collection of unused souvenir tea towels is there. And all those ornamental cats from when I had a cat collection. The attic is also full of rucksacks. Whoever uses rucksacks now?

The Protestant side of the attic

The really old stuff comes from Bert's side of the family. There are bits and pieces of Orange and Black regalia from when his father and uncles were in those orders. I really don't know what to do with those.

The Catholic side of the attic

And then there is this Sacred Heart picture that Matty gave me when I first got my own house. I haven't had it on the wall for decades but I still don't want to throw it out. A lot of ancestor issues there. So - if anyone wants me I'll be in the attic going through all the Christmas cards Bert ever received from 1959 to 1972. Or I might be perusing Pearlie's school books from the 1930s.