It's time ...

We've been talking about it since we retired. We retired 15 and 16 years ago respectively, and we're still talking about two, linked areas in our house: the loft and The Cupboard. Today, the rain fell incessantly, varying only in intensity, and a gusty wind hurled it at the windows. The car was in for an oil change. It was Time. So Mr PB started on The Cupboard. 

We live in a Victorian terrace house that would originally have been some Glasgow merchant's holiday home, so it's not devoid of storage space. Indeed, when we first moved in, we felt it spacious. We felt especially blessed by the big walk-in cupboards in the sitting room and the bedroom; we felt euphoric when we had the loft floored and lined and kitted out with shelves and desks and - eventually - a computer. Four of us fitted in just fine, and it seemed to work.

Now we are two again, and running out of space. We've already completed an epic clearance of one big cupboard, when a wardrobe became an ensuite shower room - I'm sure I've blipped it in the past, but can't find it now - but the sitting room one is another country, and it's almost entirely the domain of Himself.  As you can see, it is predominantly taken up with sheet music and booze, although there are some fascinating discoveries to be made. This evening I clocked what looked like the tripod my father used to set up  a photographic studio in the dining room before the war; he took childhood photos of me and my sister there, so I have a faint recollection of it. And if you look carefully, you'll see a whole set of brass stair-rods that I used to have to brush round when they held our carpet - OUR carpet, not my parents' - on the stairs. 

I could go on, but it's beginning to make me hysterical. Thing is, it's a chain reaction. We are beginning to think that there will come a time when the loft ladder might present a hazard to our aged selves, and that things like the music we still need might be better in the downstairs cupboard where we can get to it, while the stair rods, to name but one item, could repose in the loft...And then there are things in the loft that could be binned (there's a limit to the number of cardboard boxes you can keep just in case a computer needs to go somewhere) or ...or...

You see the problem. Some things will have to go. The wine cellar stays put. We still won't be able to put things against the left-hand wall (it gets damp: it's an outside wall). And currently there's a trail of strange items across the sitting-room floor. But it's a start.

Anyone want some brass stair rods?