Our seafreight shipment arrived from Hong Kong about two weeks ago and we’ve been intermittently unpacking boxes ever since. My house is now full of too much stuff and I’m overwhelmed by it. There is a lot more unpacking to do before I can clear the front room in time to set up the coffee table and welcome the new armchair.

Of course, it’s not just the stuff that we’re unpacking. All the bubble wrap and paper that the movers used to wrap the IKEA glasses and the (unused) silicone doughnut moulds individually has to go somewhere, too. At first it was the local rubbish tip but then we had qualms about the waste, so luckily someone spotted the post on Facebook marketplace and came and took some of that and some of our collapsed seafreight boxes away. It was gratifying that he was a carer for someone just about to move into a residential home, and would be reusing our packaging material to help her.

We have an added problem in that we still haven’t received the bedroom windows that we thought were ordered in February, which has meant that we’ve lost all our usual wardrobe storage and I haven’t been able to put away my clothes that arrived during the summer. Two amalgamated households all having to fit into two thirds of one house is a squash, and picking one’s way around it is infuriating and stressful.

We moved to Hong Kong but kept our house and its contents more or less as they were, which means that the crystal glasswear and everyday crockery was supplemented in HK initially by IKEA stuff and then by colourful Le Creuset to liven up our stark white HK kitchen. We bought an electric piano and an additional Thermomix for those four years, and several vacuum cleaners, some of which came to grief but could not be repaired in HK. I could go on but you get the picture. 

How did I accumulate so many things? Partly it’s because of my FOMO: I’m an early adopter and unable to resist the latest gadget. I often find that these things don’t work as they’re supposed to or are simply superseded with more stuff that I just have to try.Why on earth do – did – I need so much stuff? The answer is, of course, that I don’t. Why did I buy it? The constant quest for something shiny and new? An easy way to bring a little excitement to a humdrum life? Reflecting on this makes me feel so sad at the waste of time and money that could have gone towards something much more wholesome and productive.

That quote from William Morris about having nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful always mattered but now we are overrun with useful and beautiful stuff.

This spring I was charged with clearing the houses of my parents-in-law, and that changed my perspective entirely. I feel strongly that I don’t want to leave all this extra hassle for my offspring or anyone else should I come to a peremptory end. Space to breathe and be is important.

So I’m gradually sorting through it all. Out go the bits and pieces of green and blue Denby crockery that I found so irresistable twenty years ago. I don’t agree that that colour combo should never be seen. Out goes half of my baking stuff acquired because each cake needed a different-sized tin. The old steam generator iron is replaced by the newer HK one that doesn’t fill my utility room with heat and steam like the locomotive in La Bête Humaine.

My proverbial middle drawer will take a lot of sorting out, as you can see from the picture. I’m delighted to be reunited with my bread machine, so much less time-consuming than kneading and proving by hand. My teapot that makes exactly two Le Creuset mugs of English Breakfast has arrived but I see that the favourite mug, orange of course, has disappeared along the way. John Lewis is bound to have another in stock. *eyeroll emoji*

Unwrapping the pink glass and red wine goblet from Gabriella, which made last year’s hotel quarantine tolerable, I paused and grinned. I couldn’t part with either of those items because they still bring me joy.

And this is the key: keep the things that make me smile. Pass on whatever remains and give someone else the opportunity of making their own joyful memories. I quite like that thought.