The picture’s a bit blurry, but you can tell from the Louis Vuitton storefront in the background that it’s in the ‘classy’ shopping area of town (other than the bus station). It was also pouring with rain, which means it was definitely a lot warmer than it had been the day before, when the race took place in absolutely frozen conditions around Arthur’s Seat!
Update March 2022: added coordinates. Still standing as of September 2020.
Yeah, so that turned out to be a bit of a waste of time, given that I threw 90% of them out today.
When I was packing up the old house, I knew that I’d end up chucking quite a lot of stuff out to make things neater, but I didn’t expect that I’d end up being so ruthless with my clothes and accessories. The thing is, I’m just sick of the hoard. The hoard is everywhere, I’m currently spending my entire time sorting through it and tripping over piles of it and moving boxes of it about so that I can access more boxes of it, and it’s causing me a lot of anxiety and stress, especially on ‘sorting days’ like today when my hoarding nature means that I have to go through every single thing and devote mental energy to agonising for a few minutes about whether I should keep it.
And with jewellery and hair accessories it literally is EVERY SINGLE THING I’ve ever owned in my life, because you don’t outgrow necklaces and scrunchies the way you do clothes, so my collection genuinely dates back to when my parents first decided they needed to tie my hair back in 1987:
New baby bro scheduled to arrive next month, gotta raise my style game.
Yes, I still have those green tartan ribbons. Of course I do. They’re not being chucked out (they’re in an inaccessible part of the hoard right now, so I couldn’t even if I wanted to), because if it dates from the ’80s, it obviously stays. (What, you thought I’d been cured of ALL of my issues?)
Thankfully, I’m coming to the end of the ‘sorting days’ as far as my wardrobe is concerned, but next month, there will be the study. Oh dear god, the study. Boxes and boxes and boxes full of old correspondence, and schoolwork, and the first fumbling childhood steps in my lifelong fiction-writing habit, and the most painfully private diaries and poetry – all of which will need to be carefully scanned and then frantically shredded (and ideally burnt, but I’m not sure the atmosphere could cope). Mounds of receipts and paperwork and keepsakes, which will need to be sorted and filed. Piles of old broken electronics, and the manuals for the old broken electronics, and the twisted and tangled mess of connector cables for the old broken electronics. Artwork and other wall decorations that I don’t like any more but have been dragging with me through approximately five house moves. Cassette singles I bought in the early ’90s, which I won’t throw out, but will instead stare at wistfully for ages, marvelling at their glorious age and endurance, remembering a different century, wasting time when I’m supposed to be getting on with the hoard.
I know I’ll get to the end of it sometime. It just feels like such a mountain to climb. A literal mountain of stuff.
But I’m going to climb it, because there’s no other way through for me.
I spotted this phone box with its door missing on the day I first did the Great Edinburgh Winter Run. Because the event is so busy, Dad had parked further up the Pleasance while I did the race, and so I was able to grab a picture of this one as we went past afterwards.
Red phone box, West Richmond Street, Edinburgh, 9th January 2016.
After a couple of days of dribs and drabs of small deliveries of house stuff, the big Ikea order arrived today! Most of it (I’ve already assembled the replacement lamp) is still sitting in the middle of the living room, as there’s no space to assemble the units or put them in their eventual places yet. And just when I thought I’d reclaimed that bit of living room floor. Oh well.
I also finally finished the wardrobe cull. It’s amazing how much stuff I realised I just didn’t like or want to wear, and in total I’ve probably got rid of about 75% of my clothes. To be fair, I am now spending a lot of time online, fantasy shopping for replacements, but I’m trying to be good and only (mostly) buying things I actually need.
Now that the Ikea order is here, one thing I can do is start putting stuff into its proper storage boxes. Hopefully I’ll have a properly functioning dressing room, at least, by the end of the week!
I spent today getting on with my wardrobe cull. I got rid of a lot of dresses, underwear, scarves and hats, and a lot more shoes – I’ve now got the previous total down to 59 pairs. That’s a pretty big drop, and it means my new shoe shelves will look really neat and uncluttered.
Well, at least until I replace all the thrown-out pairs with new ones!
No, I’m kidding. Like with everything else in the house, I’ll be instituting a one-in one-out rule once my shelves are full, in order to avoid things getting back into the chaotic hoarding state that has made this house move so stressful. Neither Geth nor I have ever been in the habit of throwing things away, but that has to change from now on, for my own sanity.
I’m quite looking forward to seeing what it’s like to live without mounds of stuff everywhere!
Well, I didn’t want to start doing the mega wardrobe cull until I’d hit my Slimming World target, but after weeks of chaos upstairs with having to clamber over stuff and not being able to find anything, I admitted defeat and started putting stuff in binbags and donation bags today.
I’ve come a long way with my hoarding problem over the years, but I still find it hard to let go of stuff, especially clothes. I think it’s partly because I was so broke for so many years post-graduation – during that time, even a £5 Primark top was a hard-earned purchase, and it feels almost disrespectful to my struggling younger self just to toss the item away, even if it’s old and full of holes.
I’ve been trying to mitigate this by using the digital hoarding method – taking a photo of each piece so that I still ‘have’ it. I’ll probably never look at these photos again, but knowing they’re there makes getting rid of the physical stuff a lot easier.
I threw out a lot of shoes today. My previous total of 91 pairs first went up to 95 pairs, because I found four pairs that I thought I’d previously thrown out but it turned out I hadn’t. I’ve now got it down to 77 pairs, and I reckon I’ll be able to get it down further when I finish the cull job tomorrow. It’s especially tough to get rid of shoes, because I love shoes, but I’m trying just to keep thinking about the lovely neat shoe shelves I’ll be able to have up in the dressing room (not to mention, I must confess, the shiny new pairs I’ll be able to buy).
The biggest motivation for all this de-hoarding is the fact that I can’t wait for the house to look nice and uncluttered, so that I can finally relax and properly feel like this is home.
I think these ones are very pretty with the flowers, autumn leaves and memorial in the background. It’s nice when red phone boxes are still a feature of town centres.
Update March 2022: added coordinates. These ones were still standing as of November 2020.
…is gradually, very gradually, starting to feel like home. Sort of.
I spent most of today dismantling the old Ikea Billy bookshelves that we don’t have space for anymore. The plan is to make new ones out of them, but I’ll get my dad’s advice on that when he’s visiting later this week. I also put one Billy up in the living room as temporary shelving next to the TV. If I like the way it looks long-term it may get a reprieve. It’s currently holding all our ornaments, which sounds frivolous but actually has the useful function of giving us some time to work out which ones we like looking at enough to keep.
Boxes are also getting unpacked a bit quicker than expected. This is mainly because twice a day I realise that I need something, but don’t know which exact box it’s in, so I have to go through a few before I find the thing. There’s not really anywhere for the stuff to go yet, but I am finding a lot of temporary solutions.
This week should be a real breakthrough, as once my parents have visited, we will have the walls painted upstairs, meaning that we can get the furniture finalised up there, meaning that I can get all our clothes and accessories put away. Well, in my case, about 40% of them. Dear God, I have far too many clothes. The amount I’ve pulled out of boxes this week has been enough to send anyone screaming into the night. The main reason I’m so impatient to get to my target weight is that I can’t wait for the giant trying-everything-on-and-then-getting-rid-of-most-of-it session that I’m not allowed to have until then. You never know what might suddenly look awesome at target, so I’m not allowed to chuck anything out till then, no matter how old and scraggy it is.
(I realised yesterday that one of my current-rotation bras is about twenty years old, judging by the style of the M&S label. Somehow, I don’t think it will survive the cull.)
I have a few pictures of this phone box, which I consider one of my ‘local’ red phone boxes as I can get there on the Metro; Newcastle itself doesn’t have any red phone boxes (other than the mystery derelict one in Gosforth that I have never managed to find), but there are plenty in other areas of Tyneside and Wearside. The first photo I have of it was taken by my dad when my parents were out exploring the area on their first visit to see us here:
Red phone box, Front Street, Tynemouth, 2nd May 2015.
You can’t really see from this picture, but when I was on Google Street View to find out the name of the street, I realised that there’s actually another phone box behind this one. Next time I’m in Northampton I’ll make sure to take a picture of the both of them!
Update February 2022: added coordinates. This box and its shy twin were still standing as of November 2020.
