Richard Hearn has a post-holiday sort out

We have been clearing stuff out. We’ve talked about it for ages, and been doing it on a small scale, but last weekend we actually started moving rooms around. I mean, of course, the contents of rooms, but enough to start calling the rooms by different names.

“When we return home, I’m eager to get rid of ‘stuff’. I aspire to a simpler life”

The urge often comes post-holiday. I think it’s because we stay in ‘holiday homes’, where when you open the cupboard, there is one spoon, rather than a choice of three. I start to associate the reason that I’m feeling less stressed down to the lack of clutter (rather than perhaps the real reasons of work, my part in getting the kids ready in the morning, everyday chores) but I know that when we return home, I’m eager to get rid of ‘stuff’. I aspire to a simpler life.

Not totally sure how we accumulated the stuff; I don’t think either of us are shopaholics. But stuff comes in the door, either bought or given to us, or sometimes seemingly smuggled in by visitors, and maybe I feel more guilty than others about chucking stuff away, but it’s built up.

Yes, I’ve cleared out drawers before, or reduced a pile, but the major overhaul needed one big object to go, to leave some space for manoeuvre. Getting rid of a particular wardrobe was the starting point. Do you remember those tile puzzles, where you have to slide everything around with only one empty space? This was the same game, but with furniture.

It was a genuinely transforming weekend. Chest of drawers, beds, pictures, small tables, big tables, chairs and bookshelves were emptied, shuffled around, hoovered behind, repositioned. Behind one chest of drawers, The Boy found £6.42 in English money – there was also some Euros and cents – which he shared unequally with Youngest™. Plus some long-lost Lego. Four car loads of stuff went to charity shops, two items to auction, some to the tip and a couple of things on Gumtree. Certain items drifted from room to room like flotsam and jetsam before getting beached on the upstairs landing.

Curtains were swapped around, furniture used for different purposes, contents of boxes were combined. Toys hidden under other toys were exhumed. Some stuff no-one recognised, it had just got hidden under layers like a fossil. By clearing out, we are bringing other stuff back to life, giving it the air it deserves.

It has felt cleansing, therapeutic, lightening, and overdue. And it’s addictive too. I find myself hunting out stuff to chuck out the door, to bag up, to gift aid. There’ll be a point when I go too far and important stuff starts disappearing. There might even be a time when we’re down to just the one spoon. Watch this (increasing) space.