Ladies and Gentlemen,

I noted the article written by PB of Forest Hill (►►►), who talked about the problems she was having while trying to get her now grown children to take all their belongings to their new homes now that they have moved, and I can feel and relate to her pain, but I wonder if I am the only pensioner that has acquired this arguably related problem. 

I will admit that, over the years there are some items that I have an excess of, and that my home may have always been perceived as marginally cluttered by visitors, but now, even I am beginning to notice that the space that once was is gradually disappearing.

I suppose I can be described as a relatively young pensioner who finds herself alone now that the children have grown up and moved out.  I think that retirement really puts that scenario into perspective for so many.  So it made perfect sense to find a new housemate.

For me the answer was my mother who also lives alone and so she moved in with me not so long ago and all is going well except for one rather large detail.  We now have two of nearly everything and between us we have quite a lot of stuff.  We are so aware that there are too many pots and pans in the kitchen and the two of us really don’t need an iron, a kettle, a paper shredder, a vacuum cleaner and a ladder each either.

It makes perfect sense to get rid of the duplicated items, but we are each as attached to our individual version of these commodities as the other. I suppose that I am a chip off my mother’s block, if you know what I mean, because the intrinsic value of the said items is hard for us to overlook when deciding which one should go.     It almost feels as if my throwing away or getting rid of something useful and cherished could be reflected in the way I am regarded by others and I really would not want to be ‘thrown away’ just because I am superfluous to requirements.

The result in so many cases, is that we both offer to be the one to say goodbye in the knowledge that we don’t want to be held responsible for the loss of the other one’s beloved item after it has made its escape to the charity shop or, worse still, the bin, and conscience dictates that neither ends up being side-lined, I suppose that eventually one of each duplicated item will break leaving us with the other and no need to go back to the shops...

As a result, we still have too many old records, books, pots and pans, irons, kettles and so much more and will have a relatively cluttered house for quite a while longer I think…

OL, Sydenham