Op shops, bins full in spring

Now, look, I honestly cannot conceive any situation in which I might be wearing an orangey striped beach towel with thick white fringing all round.

But that’s one thing that emerged from my linen press cleanout this week and, in case you think it has been there for 100 years, let me tell you it was resting on a shelf with newspaper covering dated 2010. Not long, is it? Although, after this recent cleanout, I have vowed to do the job annually and have no surprises at all.

I have never yet set out to clear space without finding quite strange things.

Even cans, when I had an assortment inherited from a bachelor cousin heading home overseas.

He thanked us for the hospitality and left the contents of his pantry in ours.

There were various tins which got mixed up in our lot.

One day, fancying apricots and ice cream for an unbeatable dessert, I left opening the tin until spoons were banging. What a shock. There was no odour as a warning, just the sight of nicely rounded apricot halves lying neatly there, those nicely rounded backs totally black.

Black! What an unreal sight, a strange sensation just looking at it.

What chemical turn around has taken place over how many months, years, to make the fruit totally black but still retaining perfect shape and no smell?

Taste? Tempting to try but we didn’t, safety prevailing. But I still wonder - a bit. What else do you find when you clean up?

Aside from routine trivia - supermarket receipts, dry cleaning tickets, small dead batteries and the like - we find Lotto tickets (no good ones yet) lost lipsticks (which are very good) and the odd $20 note.

Fair compensation for the job, eh?

Best of all, there’s a good mood based in having tackled a disliked job.

You feel good enough to tell others, which gives them a nudge in the same direction

Spring is the time when wheelie bins are full and, better still, op shops too.