In March, when I posted my last musing, I was contemplating how I would mark my next, my 100th. Because anniversaries are the thing, particularly the hundredth. Perhaps a look back at some of them: ‘A mucky business’, ‘Friend or Foe’, ‘And so to bed’, ‘Colds, whistles, buttons and plywood’, ‘How we met Bob and Bob’, ‘Lynda Snell has got a point’, ‘Beethoven keeps your ears warm’, ‘Cummings and goings’, ‘…hee iv feree fis dog’, ‘Litter, offal and Samantha’, ‘Shuffling along’, ‘You can never tell with bees’, ‘A right royal cracker’ and the 86 others should give me something to write about. Then I counted them all up and found that the last, ‘The excitement of February’, actually was my 100th, so that was that.
But it did make me think I should make up for lost time because nine months have gone by since I last penned anything. Just as I was scratching my nose and wondering where to start daughter Sophie rang and began talking about bucket lists and how about taking a trip on the Orient Express before we popped our clogs. And then, being even more helpful, suggested she be given Rosie’s antique rings now because her fingers are too swollen with arthritis to wear them and anyway it would help with the de-cluttering.
But she has a point. De-cluttering. Someone’s got to do it, sooner or later. Pre or post Grim Reaper. But getting rid of stuff is a physical and emotional nightmare. There’s so much of it. Where to begin? Old wood off-cuts, kept because they’ll come in useful one day, that’s easy. Bonfire. Old leather bound books, some in German, rescued from my mother’s house when she died, less easy. Auction. Legal documents, c1820’s, hand-written on vellum, difficult. Law Society?
