Junk, junk and more junk. Throwing out clothes and shoes and bits of this and that. I'll have to have another look into my own de-cluttering after going through my mother's house.
The two bins are full to the brim and I've only gone through the bedroom. The sewing room is a monster waiting to devour my time so roll on 'hard rubbish' collection.
The BrickOutHouse was getting a bit antsy about changing his grandmother's house and moving her things but after today he realises why I'm going about it so thoroughly and so slowly.
Already I've found her pearls tucked away in a tiny purse. And joy, today I found his watches.
The watches, always the watches and what happened to them. His 21st watch, his grandfather's gold watch, which was still ticking away after 15 years and his sapphire and diamond watch from his father. Mum had put them away safely, so safely nobody could find them until today.
I was trying to move some glasses into a corner of the crystal cabinet but they kept getting caught on something I couldn't see in the dark of the hall. And there they were in a pouch in the corner, the darkest corner.
The sapphire faced watch with the four diamonds has a checkered history. In one of my sister's manic throw-outs, the watch went but on the way to the bin, it dropped in the grass. By the time the BOH frantically tried to retrieve his treasures nearly everything was lost. He was lucky to save his stuffed rat. Those damned stuffed rats. The boys used to buy them at the Dingley Market and hang them from the double bunks and they looked disgustingly real. Anyway, the watch was miraculously found, when sister ran over it with the lawnmower. The band was mangled but the face and works were okay.
He has declared he will now look after his precious watches and I'm putting this here as a record that he said that just in case they go missing again and he wants someone to blame.
Just as long as he doesn't put them in the sewing room.
14 comments:
I'm astounded at how quickly twenty years goes by. 2029 seems a long way off now, but 1989 is very recent. (A warning to young folks.)
As Australia's greatest poet I worry about my oeuvre, scrawled on old phone bills and other scraps around here. I cannot rely on my daughter to rescue it; being a five-bedroom house type she'll say "what's this crap" and throw it all out.
A poet needs a blue-stocking pa-a-a-a-artner to outlive him: a haughty woman, donged whacked and made cross-eyed by literature.
That's why I continue my suit with Miss Pavlov. She has an old house, very small, and full of spiders.
Loving you.
Always.
-Robert.
Special mention to Miss Pavlov.
who knows what else you will find
Two rubbish bins and you've only done one room? Ummm, glances around living room, maybe I should start my own decluttering. It's great that you've found missing treasures after all this time. How amazing that the watch survived being mowed.
It gives pause for thought Robbert.
I have no idea what my granddaughters will do with my things or whether they'll want to read my journals but I hope they keep them somewhere for the next generation. Why is it that we suddenly want to know everything about family when they're dead and it's too late to ask?
Therese, I wouldn't be surprised to find a dessicated mouse or two in that sewing room even though I've been through it twice in the last three years.
River, my house is like a tip. I bring things home to make room over there and all of a sudden there is a pile for the op-shop, a pile to keep and always the ironing board is up for the next batch of name tags. I got sick of putting it up and down so now it's sitting there until I've finished.
Mind you I'm going to enjoy telling her tomorrow that the linen cupboard is in order and she can't muck it up anymore.
Why is it that we suddenly want to know everything about family when they're dead and it's too late to ask?
Why indeed. Was never interested in all that "family history" stuff until after age 60. Son is not the least bit interested - won't be for another 30 years, and will be long dead by then. Ah, the inequities and paradoxes of life.
(damn, am signed into wrong gurgle a/c)
Cheers,
Davo.
Erck, did all that when my mum popped her clogs 11 yrs ago but I'm so glad you found the lost treasures.
Why is it that we suddenly want to know everything about family when they're dead and it's too late to ask?
Hmph! Made contact with a long lost cousin recently who trilled loudly "I want to know everything about the family" then decided the "everything" I had told her was too much to deal with and cut off communications.
Good riddance to stupidity!
I'm in email conference with my social worker niece. She has an MA. I'm getting her a PhD. -A ticket to the eastern suburbs. Sydney of course. You're what you can afford.
Inner suburbs, oh golly, a miracle has occurred, poverty has flown. Inner suburbs, oh good heavens, vagrant displacement, public servant advance.
Inner suburbs, oh my golly good heavens, the Arts pages of the fuckbrain Age!
Bah. Don't worry. Go ahead. In twenty years you'll laugh at all this -or you rellies will when they come to clean up.
Burn those pages.
-ROBBERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Robbbberrt, today I made the trip back to Adelaide to collect all the stuff 'in storage'. Was costing me $100/month. Not worth it, nobody in my 'family' cares. Will strip it to 'vaguely important' and dump the rest.
Yes, it's a serious problem, hard to part with things, meanwhile you're paying rent for it all. Maybe it's better to just cut the cord, let it all go. My little hacienda is grossly overfurnished, I can hardly walk around here, and every cupboard crammed with goods I don't need but won't let go of. I've even got multiples of the same thing, like expensive new tools I'll never use but just gloat over having. I know I'd be happier with most of it gone but I just can't do it.
So is that where you're from, Adelaide?
Bloody 'ell - no wonder you're being more thorough than a bellybutton lint collector; you never know what she's hidden and where...
Davo, this is the problem all of us 'loners' have to face. What's important to us is nothing to the world. I'm lucky in one way that a few things I have can be donated to Embroiderers Guild. Unlike my mother who has me to remember where and when she bought something, I'm my only memory.
Robbert, I know that gloating feeling. I get it when I look at a cupboard full of French lace that's nearly impossible to source now because it's all copied in China. I found the receipts in a box from l985 when mum and I bought $6,000 worth of discontinued lace and because we took the lot we got a 50% discount.
No Chinese but Brussels, Swiss and French lace, I'm still gloating over what's left.
Kath, if it had been left to my sister, she'd have chucked it all in a skip. She rang last night to ask what I was doing with the bookcases which are in the hall, neat and tidy opposite the sewing room which is jammed to the ceiling and is next on the list. I ended up saying a few words about priorities. Even the notes I threw out I read first and one scrap of paper was the funeral notice she's written out for my son and you can see where the tears have made the ink run.
Please do be careful when you are sorting the sewing room.
Your Bedroom or Mine?
posted at The Otherworld Diner
You already know that the gals here are all paranormal writers. But my paranormals tend to be historicals too, whether they originate as a historical or start as a time travel that ...
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