Life must be filled up

Today, I had a long list of things to organise, each of which required a telephone call and then making an appointment of some kind. My heart sank and I realised I would actually prefer to clear out kitchen cupboards as part of my ongoing decluttering, tidying and cleaning mania. It turned out to be not so much tidying as throwing out. All those dead spices (‘use by 20.11.08’)! The baking ingredients part used and now useless (yellowing desiccated coconut, glacé cherries hopelessly glued together)! When recycling day comes around, I shall have trouble carrying out the bottle box. I now have spaces where before there was danger of a landslip of tins and packets every time I opened the cupboard door, but some restocking will be necessary. How lucky for Waitrose.

I was reminded of the famous comment by Mr Colman* (of mustard fame) that he made his fortune out of ‘what people leave on the side of the plate’. Perhaps the fortunes of Schwartz, Whitworth’s and other retailers of cooking ingredients are based on the good intentions of people who actually intend to cook with the things they pluck off the supermarket shelf because ‘you always need them’. Do you think Nigella actually uses every single item in those amazing store cupboards of hers, containing every ingredient necessary to make every possible dish? Perhaps I’m just a bad housekeeper.

*I found three tins of Colman’s mustard powder, all out of date. Moral: if you kept your cupboards tidier, you wouldn’t buy something you already had. Help, I haven't even started on the fridge.

Just a heads up for a programme on Radio 4 today, at 1.30. In Too Many Books Sarah Cudden meets people who have to get rid of some books and looks at how they choose which ones can go. There's also a visit to The Bookbarn.

I had to lose hundreds of books when I downsized so I know how hard it is. I'd still put myself in the 'too many books' category. I wonder if anyone will suggest that the answer could be a Kindle? Should be interesting.

Later: programme was a wasted opportunity. Annoying presenter and no one told her that Anthony Powell pronounced his name Poel, a pedant writes.

Thank goodness for the BBC iPlayer. I completely forgot to watch yesterday's Mastermind with san_valentine answering questions on 'The Romney Marsh novels of Monica Edwards'. She was brilliant! Every answer right and she went on to win the contest. It was rather shocking how many answers I was able to get without any revision. Mastermind won't be repeated next week so here's the link.

As moving day approaches, my clearing gets more and more ruthless. Yesterday I made my third assault on the laundry, which also serves as a sort of gardening annexe to the Big Shed. Having decided that three ancient Barbours were two too many, I went through them looking for the odd pound coin and anything incriminating. In just one pocket I found:
a knife
a pair of tweezers
a packet of tissues
a packet of seeds stamped 'sow before 1998'
a NCCPG packet of seeds, Papaver rhoeas 'Cedric Morris'. I'll keep those; poppy seeds stay viable for ever, right?
a box of matches
a pencil
three plant labels
an ancient planting plan for a new border.

Wot, no string or sealing wax? The Barbours and another carload of goods have gone to the dump and believe it or not, the boot is full again already.

Someone else on my Flist has been extolling the joys of decluttering and I agree that it is very satisfying. When you’ve lived in a big house for a long time and downsizing looms, there’s an awful lot of stuff to be got rid of and one feels less overwhelmed by it all if a box is got rid of every now and then.

One thing I do every year and more than once is to dispose of hundreds of books. I know this will cause raised eyebrows amongst people happy to live with tottering piles but, see above, I don’t like to feel out of control and I buy more books than I can keep. I’ve been going through the shelves in the hall and am rather shocked by what is a keeper and what a goer. IN stay Adrian Mole and Bridget Jones. OUT go Dostoievsky, Gogol and Turgenev. Admittedly, these are old Penguin Classics with browning pages and small print (print is getting smaller, I swear) but something puritan in me says this must be wrong.

But why? What are books for? Classics will always be available. I think the slightly guilty feeling comes from the idea that one ought to have a library and that means a range of reference books and of the great classics. OK, I’m certainly never parting with Jane Austen, George Eliot or Dickens because who knows when I might just have to read them and NOW. Do I need to keep Greek classic plays and the great Russians (I’m excepting Tolstoy, who stays) in case I want to check something? Or to impress visitors? Huh: the only thing visitors to our house ever want to look at is the juke box. I turned out huge numbers of history books years ago on the grounds that they were out of date and never looked at, but I still felt uneasy about it. I do still have a copy of the Penguin History Tudor England by S T Bindoff. It has my name inside, with ‘VI 1 Arts 11’ and I have a strange sentimental attachment to it.

So the boot of the car fills up regularly with neatly tied up carrier bags full of books for the Oxfam book bank. No doubt a number will be dumped but somebody, somewhere may be pleased to find others. I hope so.