Friday, December 18, 2009

Detritus of Life

I feel very sad as I have just watched a very important part of my life disappear into the Recycling truck.
When I was still in primary school, my parents probably sacrificed a lot to buy me a set of encyclopedias. I learnt so much from them and even in more recent years I would still read volumes 5 & 6 on the history of Europe up to WW11. The internet means I have not opened even these volumes in recent years.  The science volumes have obviously been of no use for many years. There was one small volume on sex which my parents kept from me until I was an adult and by that time it was of no use to me. I think I threw it out several years ago after looking up its references to homosexuality, but it was written in the early 50's.
That red set of books has taken up a full shelf of my bookcase nearly all my life and yesterday I put it into the recycling bin along with a lot of other treasured but dated books.


My lounge room floor (the photo is just a section) is covered with dishes, ornaments, tea sets, mugs, vases, pans, etc etc for a garage sale tomorrow. Many of the items were my mother's or my step grandmother's and I have never used them. I spent yesterday's extreme heat sticking coloured labels on them according to the price I am asking. Blue $1, Red $2, Green $5 Yellow $10.  There are some items priced higher including a small TV which was my mother's, all my dining chairs and 2 lounge chairs.  Two hiking friends have offered to come early and help me take the lounge chairs out. If all the chairs sell, I will be left with one high kitchen chair/stool, a night/day bed settee and my desk chair on which to sit for another month.

As mentioned, yesterday was another day of extreme heat. 42'C in the town on the plain and 36'C in the nearby mountain town. There were bushfires across the state and 9 houses were lost down south. A cool change came through about 4am and it has just begun to rain at 7am.
It is forecast to be fine tomorrow. I hope so as I only have a small carport for my garage sale.

1 comment:

Fran said...

Good wishes for your sale. It is quite the cathartic act to go through a lifetime of things amassed, collected, received and then to deal with them.

Peace and prayers for you Brian!