On coffee and clutter.

Sitting in the Aroma Cafe at Rochdale infirmary, waiting while Phil undergoes what they assure us is a routine procedure, I buy a flat white, the nearest thing I can find to a reasonable cup of coffee. It even comes in a fairly normal sized cup. What I cannot fathom is why such drinks are always served at mouth-scalding temperature. At least in the hospital it only cost me £1.60? Much more reasonable than many coffee outlets in this country.

But this is still a far cry from the continental coffee habit of popping into a cafe, downing a quick coffee at the counter and going on your way. I don’t think that will ever come into practice here.

Funnily enough I am pretty sure there are pubs, somebody’s local, where people drop in for a quick half, drink it at the bar and go on their way.

Different countries and different habits!

The other day Phil commented, in frustration at not laying his hands quickly enough on the shirt he wanted to wear, that he has too many clothes. So yesterday I pulled ALL his clothes out of the wardrobe and made him decide what was for keeping. Failing that, I would take an executive decision and throw almost everything out. And so we ended up with a couple of bags of stuff still in good condition but which he never intends to wear, (However did it occur to me that might wear linen trousers or a linen jacket? Just not his thing at all!) which will make its way to the charity shop. And then there was a mound of stuff for simply throwing out: stuff kept out of inertia, or in case it came in useful to wear when gardening or decorating!

And suddenly all the stuff he wants to wear in accessible with ease.

It was quite cathartic! It must be time I did it again with my stuff as it must be almost a year since I went through it all.

All of us end up cluttered up with belongings.

I really should go through the kitchen cupboards and give away to a good home the various pots and dishes bought on impulse and rarely, if ever, used.

Earlier thhis year I carried out a similar procedure with collections of photos. Pictures of Christmas trees from twenty years ago serve no useful purpose, especially when they all look the same and you can’t tell one year from another. Ditto pictures of cute lambs in fields!

My phone forces me to do this from time to time as it starts to tell me that the storage is almost full. And there I was, thinking it was almost infinite! So I have deleted stacks of messages from the dentist or the hairdresser, reminding me of the time of my appointment, routine messages about where to meet people and other non-essential clutter.

Decluttering is the name of the game!

Now I need to pluck up courage and attack the VAST collection of books!