Hot Up Top

Blimey it was hot in the loft yesterday. I mean, it was hot outside, a really nice sunny day when we should have been wafting around the garden with a long cool drink, then resting on the patio with a good book and maybe some cheesey nibbles and fresh fruit. But did we waft? Did we read and nibble? No. We went into the even hotter attic, where there was not a breeze to be had, and we lost about a stone each in sweat as we tried to be ruthless with our myriad collection of tat.

'Where do we start?' I said, after we'd spent the first ten minutes moving things from here to there and back again and achieving nothing. Andy shrugged. He was feeling edgy. He was twitching every time I laid a hand on one of his sci-fi books or electronic gadgets. He was like a coiled spring, ready to leap into action should they make their way towards the area marked out for 'Tip.'

We'd got as far as designating areas. Three to be precise. One for things to go to the tip, one for things to go to the boot fair or failing a sale there, to the charity shop of our choice. And one for 'Keeping.'

'Right,' I said, 'I am going to start in that corner there.' And I pointed to that corner there. 'And I am going to be RUTHLESS!'

As I clambered across the mini-tat mountain range to that corner there, I sent up a prayer to the God of Ruthlessness who is called Clive.

'Dear Clive,' I said, 'give me the strength to be ruthless in my task of clearing the attic. Make me firm of mind and void of sentimentality. Make mine eyes clear to the fact that if I find something I haven't seen or used for the last five years I am unlikely to use it in the next five years. Help me put aside childish things like 'Mousetrap' and jigsaw puzzles. But please let me keep my wedding dress, amen.'

I experienced a moment of weakness when the God of Clutter, Sandra, interrupted my contemplation and said, 'Better keep the Junior Scrabble. You want your grandchild to be a good speller, don't you?' but as I said to Sandra, by the time Grandchild goes to school the Government will probably have done away with literacy in favour of basic grunting, thus rendering Junior Scrabble redundant.

For the two hours we managed to survive the desert heat of the loft, we made good progress. Luckily, most of the stuff we got through was mine and as I was being ruthless we got rid of a boot load of stuff down the tip, and have another boot load and a half to go the the boot fair and/or charity shop of our choice. There is an impressive space in the loft now. And I'm not quite sure how we came to have so many duvets. Or stereo systems. Or soft toys. But now we don't. Except for the duvets because they all seemed new and you can never have enough duvets.

And now Andy has seen how ruthless I can be and what a liberating experience having a good clear out is, I am hoping he will be just as enthusiastic when it comes to clearing out some of his stuff.

But I fear I may need to ply him with copious wine and then sneak into the attic when he isn't looking and set about his boxes of treasure myself. And when he says 'Where's my collection of 'The Rhibard Xening Tales of Kfling Dint Burble (1959 ed)' I shall have to say (with fingers firmly crossed behind my back), 'Oh, you sold those on e-bay AGES ago. Don't you remember?' and then run for the hills until the fracas dies down.

Don't worry, Andy. I won't really do that. (Bluff.)
'Is she bluffing?' thinks Andy.
'I'm not bluffing,' I say. (Double bluff).
'Or is she double bluffing?' thinks Andy.

It's a cunning craft, the clearing out of a loft.

P.S There are various areas of the Much Malarkey Manor website open for business now. Yesterday I created the Culinary Experiment Blog which can be found at www.mmmkitchen1.blogspot.com and details Mrs Flanbottom's experiment into making yeast (Part 1). I hope you find it as entertaining as this blog.