I am quite jealous of a mate of mine who just sold a house. In my mind, he had only just recently moved in.
The thing is, though, I am not jealous about the profit he made in such a short period of time but more the fact that with his recent move, he has had a chance to declutter – something I dream about.
Old Mate is your classic hoarder from a long line of gatherers and keepers. Waste not, want not.
In fact, both sides of our family who were kids and young adults in the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939 were versed in hanging on to stuff.
I remember as a kid, my grandmother tying bits of string used to wrap parcels up. She would have balls of multicoloured string of various thicknesses in the cupboard with reusable wrapping paper.
I would tell Dad I was hungry, and he would reply that they used to live off bread and dripping in the Depression.
Toilet paper was cut-up squares of newspaper on a wire hook … which I wouldn’t mind using these days if it was the section on politics.
The bath use saw kids first, then Mum, then Dad (as he was the dirtiest). That way, you only had to boil the water once.
Ask Dad for money and he would say he bumped bananas for free just to get fed in his day.
Holes in socks were darned, every scrap of food was eaten at the table before you were allowed to leave, and we were taught to be grateful for everything.
Now I never inherited many of these virtues apart from the eating everything at the table habit.
But Old Mate certainly doesn’t like parting with anything that she deems may be handy someday – that is, apart from her op shop habits, which show a constant turnover of everything, incoming and outgoing (but incoming is usually the winner).
We have zero room in a double garage for a car, and back and front landings have things we might need some day.
As far as decluttering goes, we lived in one house for 13 years and transferred all the sh*t from there to this joint where we have lived for 27 years.
If I had my way, there would be a skip out the front, but luckily, I don’t.  The other day, I broke part of our ageing vacuum and Old Mate told me she might have a spare bit that would work. She did.
If there was a skip bin out the front, the only thing in it would be me.
Ashley Robinson is chairman of the Sunshine Coast Falcons and Sunshine Coast Thunder Netball, and a lifetime Sunshine Coast resident.
