AND FINALLY

The things I just can’t throw away

I WRITE this in the middle of moving my office at home and it’s a harder job than it sounds.

With the luxury (and don’t I know it and feel grateful) of space, I want to create a family playroom, so am vacating my study, conveniently next to the kitchen. But don’t we accumulate stuff?

I decided to use this as the opportunity to clear out some old files, cull a certain section of my extensive library and get rid of notes and cuttings I really don’t need any more.

They say a drowning man sees his life flash before him; well, a woman clearing her study sees her life strewn about in dusty files.

Did I really need to keep all those book reviews, especially considering that my first non-fiction title, The Year Of The Child, came out in 1979 and my first novel, The Windsurf Boy, in 1983?

How many years is it since I last looked at these yellowing scraps of paper which once meant so much to me? Yet they have trailed along with me from house to house to house . . . and now into the sixth one.

Time they went to the great shredder in the sky.

Then what about the cards? Each year my adult children give me a card for Mothering Sunday, always with a lovely message and I can’t bear to throw away those precious words, so the cards go into a drawer.

The same with birthday cards. But how many drawers can contain such oceans of affection? Isn’t it better to read, smile, contemplate the meaning and then, after a week of enjoying the wellchosen card and message, put it into recycling?

Precious objects along a shelf have set my heart spinning. How can I throw away the cardboard Easter egg-chick that grandson Barney created? Or the tiny jigsaw in a box my daughter Kitty gave me (the sweet message inside) when she was a teenager?

The answer is — I can’t. So jigsaw, egg- chick and ancient book reviews are moving, too.