Saturday 1 October 2011

Downsizing !

Well all I can say is thank goodness we have a garage attached to our cottage.


To your left is a white box thing which is the central heating boiler. (Bag of sunflower seeds on top of.) Still leaves plenty room for a car. But....
When we down sized it was impossible to persuade the daughters to do the same. These boxes contain Barbies, cds, computer games, old school reports and, well, just stuff (the eldest is 30 the youngest 25). None of them appear to be able to part with anything.

The eldest daughter has a son and in the corner at the back of the garage we are now piling up with toys for when he visits. Also his brother (who is now overdue appearing by 9 days. )
Also another grandchild, a daughter due December, so storage for toys is a must.

Three cat boxes for three cats on the top shelf here. All three have to go for their annual check up and jabs. So we need three cat boxes.
Next to them, going right are the car seats for grandchildren and 'spare' pushchair. The eldest with partner and grandchild (and the one overdue) travel by train and apparently it is easier without a push-chair.....So long as there is one here.

This pile is stuff we intended to car boot. We have done a few car boots but the pile has not diminished much.
There is, in the garage, of course, tools, light bulbs, screws, nails, paint, bird food - four bins of it - two tea trolleys (no idea) lots of bags to go to charity shops, (so do it - deliver!), glass recycling boxes, can recycling and plastic bottle recycling, and lots of things termed as "You never know when you might need this." Two lawn mowers, strimmer, the Dawn Patroller's Bike....
On the plus side we did manage to get rid of an enormous amount of stuff from our previous home which included 6 zimmer frames (it had been in its past a care home) - and I still think they would have made good plant supports - a load of crockery, bedding, beds, (we ran a b&b), masses of books in Polish - it was a care home for Polish people - odd bits of furniture all on freecycle.
But we still ended up with loads of stuff.
Just moving the few miles further north from Aberdeen means that the regulars on freecycle think we have moved to the dark side of the moon and I have had only rare collections of some really good stuff from them.
For instance we had an absolute load of packing boxes, which are always being requested on the site. The couple who eventually braved the journey of 45 minutes away from Aberdeen were absolutely thrilled to have so many! And to have saved over a £100.
So on a rainy day like today has been I thought I would get in there and sort it.
I then made the more sensible decision to come back out again and open the wine.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Whoo that makes me feel like our stuff is pretty manageable! We have no loft and no garage and maybe that's a blessing...

I love the photos in your sunrise/Indian summer/stars post, by the way.

Also, thanks for your kind comment on my blog!

(P.S. I may be having a senior moment - apologies if this is a second, expanded, comment!)