So still no progress on the moving house front. While I wait for a chain to complete underneath my potential buyer, I am trying to simultaneously put it all to the back of my mind and do something, so that I don’t feel totally impotent in the whole process. This means that I am working round the house triaging my possessions, in the hope of being less crowded in a new property and saving the removal men from having to lug a load of stuff, at my expense, that I really don’t need. The progress so far is: garden sheds tick, bathroom (not much of a challenge) tick, conservatory (apart from the children’s books which are awaiting said children) tick, my bedroom tick. This week it was time to start on the difficult stuff, the two bedrooms that contain between them eleven full height book cases (well, actually ten and two half width ones). That is an alarming sixty six shelves worth. Two of these bookcases are built in and I’d like to lose the two narrow ones, or relegate them to the garage. That means I need to find eighteen shelves of books that I can live without.

First stop the history books, six shelves of these. I tried to take a critical look. Most were acquired in the late 1970s and early 1980s they have accompanied me on three or four house moves. The vast majority of them haven’t been opened for at least forty years and if I am honest, some of them weren’t read even then. Why am I giving them house room? That’s one and a half shelves gone. Next half bookcase, local history of places other than Devon. This was harder but some more joined the ‘to be disposed of’ pile. Two book cases didn’t make much of an impact as one narrow one is seventeenth century social history and I need those. The other is family history research files rather than books, so that all stays. That left two book cases in that room still to do.

Two shelves of social history first, reduced to one and a half. Now it was getting really tricky. Next were family history books and the Devon local history books. I decided that I really didn’t want forty six years of back numbers of a family history society journal. I don’t think I have looked at back numbers more than once. Fortunately someone else was pleased to take these off my hands. Another, shorter, run from a different society also hit the ‘to be humanely disposed of’ pile. A bit of rearranging and one of the narrow bookcases was now empty, the equivalent of three shelves. I am trying not to think of the other fifteen that I need to free up.

Many of the family history books are 1990s vintage. Although the sources don’t change, the techniques do. More of these have been referred to in the past few years but some, like other items consuming shelf space, have not been opened since they were unpacked from my previous house move seventeen years ago. Out they go. I am on a roll. Still to do, the two shelves of Devon local history, I suspect I will be keeping most of those. Then it will be on to the six bookcases in the spare bedroom. These were culled during lockdown but I have hopes of significant weeding when I get to the three and a half book cases of fiction. I know some date from the sixties and early seventies, when there was a fashion for very tiny print that I can no longer read. If I started now I doubt I have enough life left to read all these again. I will be seriously asking myself how likely I am to read each one and hopefully there will be a pile to move on to charity shops.

There are of course also two banana boxes of children’s books under the spare bed. I haven’t even thought about what I do with those. Many are paperbacks that have lost their glue so the pages are loose and my grandchildren have very different reading tastes. I know that these really should go too but I may not be in the right frame of mind for that just yet. I will report on my progress – just wait until I get to the extremely full loft!

Image Peggy Marco Pixabay