Another Good Day

I didn't get out of the house.  However DH and I cleared out the corner cupboard.  The corner cupboard has been a problem since we moved in.  It's a magnificent, floor-to-ceiling, built in cupboard that looks like this

However the layout of the room has meant that there has always been a piece of furniture pushed against it, usually a sofa.  Things have been pushed in there and forgotten for years.  We used to keep things like salt and pepper in there when father was here because we didn't go downstairs to the dining room to eat (stairs!) but instead ate on trays in the living room.  When father collapsed we forgot about all that.  Father was the only one to add salt to his food.  There was also a lot of drink left in there and forgotten. 

We pulled everything out.  I had decided that we use the bottom cupboard for storing the Christmas decorations as we would then only have to move the sofa twice a year.  It didn't have that much in apart from a few photo frames. 

In the corner of the study we have a genuine sea chest.  It was my great-great aunt's and smells of cedar.  It's in the corner and usually blocked by bear on the computer and all the rubbish and clutter on top.  We emptied that as well. 

We found so much that we had completely forgotten.  We found a stash of candles that we had totally overlooked and will keep us going well into next autumn.  We found a half drunk bottle of port which was last opened before father went into hospital in 2014.  We found some very dubious pickled onions.  We threw out a lot of, well, naff raff stuff.  Just bits and pieces that would be hard to sell in a charity shop but had no use to us.  We threw out a huge stack of old reporter's notebooks that all had about half a dozen pages left.  We never used them, bear had plenty of supplies, we knew no-one who would appreciate some very elderly, slightly foxed notebooks that were extremely inexpensive when bought and were now down to their last few sheets.  We threw out some elderly tea lights that had gone a peculiar colour.  We threw out some chargers for phones we no longer had.  We put some old candle sticks to go to the charity shop after I'd scraped the dust off them - they were wrapped in newspaper from 1996.  They hadn't seen the light of day for over twenty years. 

Some things we put back.  I had artificial flowers in my wedding bouquet and we found those.  They are stashed.  We saved quite a few pictures bear did in nursery.  Some things will be put in the display cabinet or we will find uses for them elsewhere.  I found this.

I bought in in a charity shop at least twenty years ago.  I've always really liked it but never found a place for it.  I made a conscious choice that I would find a place for it. 

The result is that the car is so full of rubbish for the tip that we can't fit another scrap in and we feel a lot better for it.  I have a bag of stuff that needs to go to the charity shop which means a reason for me to leave the house.  The sea chest is empty and in the corner with a throw and a printer on and the cupboard in the living room now holds all the wrapping paper (down to @ 20 rolls), greetings cards, gift tags, candles, spare batteries and a lot of assorted envelopes. 

On top of that, we've had some very healthy meals, bear and his pal not only devoured biscuits but also an assortment of fruit and the butternut and sweet potato soup was amazing.  I made the rolls again, and they were very welcome.  I consider it a good day.