The Joy of Clutter-Free Living
My friends kindly refer to my house as "cosy" and "homely" and even "full of character". What they mean is that my home is a mess, that there are books everywhere, piles of newspapers on every surface with bits of mismatched china, old photographs and knick knacks weighing down all the shelves. To me it is disordered organisation - to others it is colourful chaos.
The degree to which I live in a state of clutter is very apparent when I go across to the Retreat Cottage. Here nothing is superfluous. The kitchen is equipped with every kind of pan, knife and gadget that a guest might need, but there are no personal bits and pieces. In the sitting room, one sees a neat row of CDs, DVDs and books underneath the television/DVD player - chosen with the general reader and viewer in mind. Again, nothing to give away much information about the person who put it all together.
It is so easy to keep the Cottage clean and tidy and in many ways I would love to live like this, but then I return to my kitchen and feel the comfort of familiarity. Objects with their own history which nobody else knows about - the day we chose the old pine table in a shop in Hereford, the plate that belonged to a long-dead aunt and the chopping board picked up in a craft shop in mid-Wales over 20 years ago.
Over the years I have done heroic amounts of clutter clearing. Some inherited books went to a second hand shop in Hay while the majority went to the Amnesty bookshop in Cheltenham. Clothes in heavy bags dragged into Charity Shops and personal papers scattered onto a succession of huge bonfires. Larger pieces of furniture, an old unwanted fridge left by a friend, bags of sheep fleeces and old television sets given away through the fantastic FreeCycle scheme. After each major clearing of clutter or giving away of possessions no longer needed, I have felt it easier to breathe and have also been able to appreciate and treasure the things I have chosen to keep.
In my quest to be a tidy person, there will be many more clutter clearings and frequent attempts to impose neatness and order. However, I shall never be able to harden my heart and throw out those precious things that have little value other than the memories they evoke.
