Day 84 - frustrating day

The charity who I’d arranged to collect from my FIL’s house said they’d call between 9 and 5. I told them there was a lot of stuff, over 60 bin liners, lots of boxes and some small furniture items - yes, they said, no problem at all they said.

I’d spent weeks sorting and gift aid labelling everything - half the clothes still have their labels on and I only included good, saleable items, including loads of gadgets still brand new and boxed. I drove across to Wakefield for 8am, spent an hour lugging everything out to the drive, then sat down to wait.

As soon as it got past noon I just knew the van would be full, but I reasoned with myself that I’d been very clear about the volume so maybe they had a plan.

Of course they rocked up at 2pm, took one look and said their van was full. I’d taken a day off work, we’d cancelled house viewings for the day and above all I’d put so much effort in that I was a little crushed. And cross because I’m not sure what I could’ve done differently!

Anyway, telling them it was all going in the skip magically produced some room in the van so they took the clothes and some boxes. There’s still 20 bags of books, the furniture and various other bits and pieces but I allowed myself a small hissy fit of ripping the jackets off a bag of books and putting them in the recycling bin and now I’m over it.

The books are back in the garage, the furniture is back in the house and I am back at home having done 16,000 steps so not all bad.

Isn’t it sad to see someone’s life in black bin liners?