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.