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I feel overwhelmed by choice this week.

We are doing the pre-prep prep for putting stuff into storage in advance of the builder’s diggers moving in a few weeks from now. Stuff lies everywhere, not in its proper place, which is stressful. Not that it ever had a proper place: it’s shocking how stuff builds up in cupboards, on floors, in drawers to fill rooms with things you might have needed once but for which you no longer have a use. Really one should have a decluttering clear-out every year but then, having paid for a THING, one is loth to part with that THING in the sure knowledge that almost immediately it has gone, it will become needed and of use again.

Choices about what to chuck, what to keep, what to take to the charity shop. Will we be able to sell the children’s ski stuff on EBay? Can we remember our old passwords? Should we try Gumtree? Will the Hospice Shop, the one that’s never any longer taking donations because they’re full and have no room for anything else, will they take something so obviously end of season as skiwear?

I have a cupboard of baking tins because every recipe calls for a different size or shape of tin and I never seem to have the one I need. I have them in old aluminium, in heavy anodised aluminium; in non-stick; in old silicone; in new silicone. Every time I open the cupboard something leaps out at me like Inspector Clouseau’s Cato. Today I cleared that cupboard out, surprised at how little I could actually put in the Don’t Need bin bag.

We need to choose the flooring. The Yorkstone I initially chose is, of course, the most expensive and there will be a lot of floor, inside and out. So is it blue/grey slate or normal slate or green slate? If so is it from China or India or Brazil or Wales? Riven or smooth? How representative is this swatch that I’m trying to match with the kitchen doors and the work surfaces? Do I want the wood on all the doors or a combination of wood and plain? If plain which of the five white colours do I choose?

This is supposed to be the fun bit, but it isn’t. I don’t want to spend a remortgaged fortune on a style disaster. I’m sure Jennifer Aldridge didn’t find her kitchen choices as painful as me.

 

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