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After the bread round and after the holidays, we are bursting with energy and are on a mission to declutter. Our sitting room doubles up as an office with my desk in one corner and a sofa and table in the other. A lovely if small room, it boasts a tiny fire place and contains masses of life’s paraphernalia. A beautiful oil painting of an old cousin’s Wicklow cottage reminds me of her long years in the local nursing home, where the painting dwarfed her room and she, only at the very end, stopped noticing that the painting was badly lit. A water colour of Achill island was a present from my parents when we holidayed there together, sharing the B&B with a Canadian artist. Prints of hussars remind me and the children of my father wild stories from a time when soldiers rode to battle and so the line continues along the wall with photographs new and old and presents that are either a long standing joke, a dream or a plan. Into this room, last year, moved both exam candidates with their ton load of books. Another desk was added to the already nicely loaded room and they worked and worked while one studied and the other made lists of what he was going to study tomorrow. At this stage, there is no room to swing a cat or a hoover and the clutter builds up – until they finally sit the exams, desert the room and we all go on holidays. Thankfully, the declutter energy comes back with us. Visiting a nephew who recently set up house and started a family, we stay in his lovely flat, empty of paraphernalia and beautiful in its stark functionality. We want a space like that and thus we energetically declutter. 3 wheelbarrows full of rubbish later, the room is still full and incredibly dusty with hundreds of indignant spiders roaming around but we are winning the declutter battle and courageously throw out masses and masses of bits and pieces that we will never look at again and never needed in the first place. The good bits are still here, the exams eradicated, the space salvaged and a beautiful room nearly restored. Once I stop sneezing, I shall start dusting in earnest and might even rise to a spot of painting. It feels great to move the clutter on and I move on to the kitchen dresser with its lots and lots of little spaces full of lots of things that nobody needs. The bins fill up and a “check it” bucket is created. Everyone has one night to check the bucket and salvage what they like. After that it goes in the trailer for the dump – or the crate for the sale. Turns out nobody needs anything that was in the drawers, the seeds are about 10- years out of date, no house needs 12 tighteners of soccer studs and the gum shields are too small for any mouth residing currently in this house. The bake house has escaped the clutter and remains functional and bright. The house will have to follow suit and then the garden, if the energy lasts that long. As we grow older, as the children grow up, we still make the choice how we want to live. Friends once gave us a sign that says "This is not a construction site, children live here". Maybe it is time to reclaim the space from construction and stop blaming the kids for our mess.
