Tuesday, May 05, 2026

Decluttering again



This week's decluttering: about 400 books, which I hope a charity is going to come and collect today. They're mainly big hardbacks - I read lots of biographies, printed diaries and letters and other non-fiction books. Don't get me wrong - we still have another 400ish, which I will reread if I live long enough. 


Also some items from the cutlery drawer. Why did we need 4 bottle openers (I've kept one)? And two nutcrackers? - I think we cracked nuts the last time when the children were small, at Hallowe'en. These are the family heirloom ones, argh, but we support a charity that collects metal to recycle, so... off they go. Also two melon ballers? Have I ever balled melon? 

This is the truncheon owned by William Menzies (pronounced, in Scotland, Ming-ess), who was married to Mr L's great-aunt Agnes. He was a village postmaster and presumably had it to discourage marauders in the tiny, beautiful, peaceful village by Loch Tay. Son and family were here for the weekend and Son has taken it away, not - I assume - to chase difficult patients from his surgery.

Yesterday we did a recce for a walk we're leading a week on Saturday. It was in the Borders, otherwise known as the Southern Uplands, and there's a reason for that. 

It was about 6 and a half miles, lots of it - most of it - going up hill and down again. 

It was beautiful and we had perfect spring weather. 

But it was quite tiring.