This will not be a long posting, there are two rooms to empty before the builders get started on some demolition in the centre of the house. Yesterday and the day before were the same, when did I acquire all this stuff? I blame television shopping, it’s incredible to realise that twenty years ago, last century I hadn’t heard of it and now I could start a shop of my own with all the clothes I have bought and all the craft stuff. Paradoxically, having got the room, I think I will now stop shopping. A lot of it was consolation, sitting at home alone. The people on the TV selling you stuff are not your friends and a working mirror will convince you that the garments that look so good on a size nothing nothingy nothing six foot tall model with perfect skin, six inch heels, under forty with hair down to here, will appear somewhat different on a five foot one, size quite a lot, spotty, hairy, grey hair not covered up, elderly lady like me. I rarely appear in photographs but if I do I most closely resemble in stature the Queen, in fact we are the same height and much the same figure type. If she bought the gear from the six foot model, her hems would be trailing on the ground too.
So having decided it’s all too much, I really ought to throw more of it away. A lot has gone to the charity shop, more to go.
I have been up and downstairs so often I should be thin like a greyhound.
However I am not. There would be something either hilarious or touching about an elderly midget trailing up and downstairs with a load of junk, were it not me. Also what is needed is a lift, really, to transport the heavy stuff, like bits of furniture. But I am moving the bits of furniture so we can demolish the chimney and have a lift instead, except that my greatest need for a lift is before I put the lift in to help with putting a lift in.
I appear to have hit the ground running. 2020 tired already. But it will be worth it. I hope the house will be future proof. I hope doing it now when there is still the will and energy to do it will mean that I do not have to make awful decisions in a rush such as I had to make for my mother. I hope we have enough room for people to come and stay if help is needed.
But most of all what I would like is the thing I wanted all the last terrible ten years, I want a place to write, to make dolls, to sculpt, to do hobbies and I would like to do all those things for thirty years or more. I would like to put the bad health behind me and discover a settled outlook. I would like to lose the fear that long ill health brings with it.
I have stories to tell you and would be glad if I had made a place to do so for many decades.
What would you like for the next decade?
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