Dear LPG

I read with interest what was written on 12^th December 2017 (►►►) with the heading ‘Stuff’ and would like to tell you of one solution that I have come up with. 

I had to have my home rewired recently and one of the electrician’s requirements was that the house had to be absolutely clear so that they could get to all the walls and wires quickly.  So before the electricians started their task they arranged to have most of the contents of the house boxed up and put in storage so that they could work really efficiently.  They made sure that nothing would be in their way.  I never realised that this was going to happen, and it was really hard to watch a professional team box up all our treasured but non- essential belongings.  

We were without them for a week and for the first half there seemed to be workmen everywhere, but when the work was done we were able to see more of the walls of the house than for a long time.  

While the boxes were away there were a few mini-catastrophic moments.  We started to watch telly before realising that the remote had been packed away and we had to learn to use the controls on the TV again. 

The boxes returned soon after the electricians left but there was so much space that we could put them all in the spare bedroom.  As you can imagine, our next task is to redecorate the house because of all the missing bits of wallpaper that getting to the wires left.  We are now going through the process of only unpacking things when we really need them, which is minimising the amount of ‘stuff’ around our house.  Our plan is to do this for a couple of months and work out what is left in the boxes, and what we really need, although everyone knows it is not quite as easy as that!  The whole process is going to take some time but it has been like a bit of a spring clean.

CM, Erith