Sort, chuck, make-do-and-mend

There's been a bit of a marathon going on in our house at Cameley Green. Nothing particularly energetic and no distance covered, but the amount achieved means that Sue in particular deserves a medal (a giant chocolate one?). She has been through our cupboards, drawers and cubby-holes for many, many weeks. All the bits, bobs and stuff of life that we've accumulated over the years has now been classified as: store, take, recycle, sell or dump.

This kind of process is not my forte, but it really is Sue's. And even with her purge diktat of, 'if it's not been used for a year, get rid', we still had a lot of stuff. In some ways I was shocked. We are not really very consumerist and I like to make things last, so to find so many objects whose fate we had to decide has been like a course in decisiveness - one must be brutal!

It reminded me of the Philip K Dick book that inspired the Bladerunner film, where there is talk of 'kipple' filling the world. The urban dictionary explains:

'Kipple... refers to the sinister type of rubbish which simply builds up without any human intervention. Eventually, one day, the entire world will have moved to a state of kipplization.' Find out more about Kipple here ~> *

I now have a similar fear. Wherever there is some space, it will always be filled. So, may I strongly urge you to have a purge of your own, and deal with your kipple - you'll feel a lot better for it. I now have a great sense of cleansing and release (I know, this sounds like a spa day ad). I feel strangely free of things. Of course, we do have some stuff left and will be taking 11 suitcases as well as my bike, but the act of getting rid of all that kipple has really helped draw a healthy line under sections of my life that I hadn't quite done until now: my father's death; student days; old hobbies, seriously out of date clothes and past loves.

My reflection on kipple as we move on to Uganda is that you don't have to be a big shop-aholic consumerist to be connected to stuff. Objects, can and should have a place in our lives, but it's not until you look in your attic that you realise that you are a bit materialistic after all.