What a waste…

Are any of you out there hoarders?

My husband is a hoarder. My in-laws are extreme hoarders. But I would have said that I wasn’t a hoarder, that I was good at making sure I only kept the minimum of what I needed.

Ha.

Since finding out I am expecting twins, I, with a LOT of help from my family (thank you!) have been clearing the house to make enough room for everyone. And sure, there are boxes and boxes of junk interesting belongings of my husband, from empty boxes of things we no longer have, to all manners of things he thinks he might use ONE day. But in a way I am just as bad. My actual belongings are fairly neat and I don’t tend to double up on things, but as I go through drawers and boxes etc, I seem to find things like a carefully stored, empty bag of wine gums. An empty sweetie bag. Right. So it appears that I hoard rubbish. Yesterday I went through the cupboards under the sink and generated a bag of rubbish and I mean that literally. Likewise with the medicine cabinet, after I threw away half the empty boxes, the cupboard was practically empty. It’s bizarre.

This is what I hoard. There’s no way I can pretend I am really planning on using an empty sweetie packet…

So it appears that I need to stand up, hang my head and admit I collect rubbish. That for some reason I’ve found it easier to find storage space for rubbish rather than just chucking it in the bin to start off with. I am a rubbish hoarder.

So I am turning over a new leaf. Rubbish goes straight in the bin. No messing. Out it goes. Even if I have to get in the bin and jump up and down to squash it all down to fit. (Probably won’t do that just yet due to immense size of stomach, see whale post…)

Now what I am supposed to do is find a link to my current work-in-progress. About rubbish. Hmmmm… Okay this passage has the word ‘waste’ in it. Is that good enough? In this snippet from Held in the Balance, Simon (Lord Curzon) is talking to his cousin Betty’s new husband.

Simon gave his usual small smile. “Fortunately I wasn’t cursed with an extended family, but I was perfectly willing to marry Betty and she’s my only cousin.”

“I can’t say I’m unhappy matters didn’t work out for you in that regard.”

Surprisingly neither was he, although he cringed to think of that final scene between Betty and him where he had but laid his heart out on the sleeve for her. A waste of time considering the strength of feeling she had for the other man. He hadn’t stood a chance. They had danced together, Betty in a gown of the midnight blue, the fabric encrusted with gemstones so she might have dropped down from heaven for the night. He had almost been afraid to touch her.

Now muslin and silks swirled about the ballroom in front of them as another waltz took hold, some couples stiff and formal, bodies held at arms-length, others so close as to be scandalous, pushing the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. His own dance with Miss Taunton had definitely veered in that direction, no concern for her fragility held him back this evening. She was a world apart from his cousin.

I was thinking this kind of colour for her dress, liberally encrusted with tiny crystals…