Does anyone want some bits of guttering? They’re zinc, I think. Free to a good, or indeed any home! I’ll send them to you or even, to be on the safe side, deliver them myself. Because it would be mad to keep them, although not quite as mad as throwing them away. Please help.

I get this a lot, which is why I’ve got too much stuff. There’s stuff I’ve bought that I shouldn’t have. There’s stuff that I’ve bought, used, and is now of no use, because it’s become obsolete or it’s conked out. In the case of the guttering it’s the leftovers from a renovation, so not entirely my fault. And always, all around the house there are random bits and bobs of all shapes and sizes which I could and should get shot of. As a cry to myself for help I bought a book about decluttering called Clutter’s Last Stand. It was quite good but then, with weary irony, I lost it among the clutter. Perhaps it’ll show up one day.

I only know one thing: that if I do throw something away thinking I’ll never need it, as sure as eggs is eggs, it will turn out to be the very thing I do need. So I have to go out and buy it again, which is the most annoying thing. I get this form of madness from my mum, who keeps everything. For years she held on to the fringes of old-style sheets of postage stamps, just sticky little offcuts of perforated paper. What for?........

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