I am a great gatherer of clutter, throwing stuff out requires an effort which goes against my instincts.

We did make heroic sacrifices and gave to friends, charity shops, auction houses and skips an enormous amount of our chattels when we moved from Mary Street (3000 sq. feet) to Griffith Place (900 sq. ft.)

The trouble is that now, having acquired our place in France (3000sq. ft.) there is much we discarded that we now long for in vain.
This doesn’t help at all when we try and de-clutter Griffith Place.
A couple of years ago my friend Clive put up a comprehensive set of shelves for us in our living room, making it look like a small library, and he also put up a shelf all along our kitchen , high enough to be just useful only for ornamental objects,intended, in other words, for clutter.

Since then every time we move down to France we bring large amounts of this stuff with us.
Last July we filled the car with books, 12 large shopping bags full, these now
live still in their bags in the cellar in Thezan.
This , you would imagine would have made a difference to our sitting room /library situation.
But not at all !
The shelves immediately filled up of their own accord and we are now having to put double layers of books on some shelves to keep them off the floor.

We have also managed to bring most of my collection of glass down to France.
These now also live in the cellar in boxes there.
So what remains on our shelf in the kitchen is now just clutter.

This morning I thought about doing another decluttering exercise and looked at one (small) section of this shelf to see what could be discarded.

This is it.
I had a good look at it and….. I’m sorry but it is not going anywhere (except maybe to France.)

What may well look like rubbish to you is quite different to me.
Here is its story, from left to right:

Strange bas relief of a face is a work-in-progress for a sculpture by my brother-in-law Martin Lyes. I saw it in his shed and he threatened to throw it out.
I kept it.

It sits on a velvet case which holds a medallion of the Euro-Toques logo which Bulgaria presented to me, possibly as a bribe to get my vote to vote them into the organisation.
It worked.

Next is a picture made of worn pieces of Languedoc red tiles which I found on the beach in Collioure, and which I then, in a moment of creativity, decided to glue on to an old blackboard as a collage.
It took ages, it stays.

In front of that is a piece of experimental glass sculpture made by Waterford to give to American buyers in 2000 as an example of their versitility. They had the dinner to show these off in my restaurant and I somehow was left with one of the pieces.
As you will know now, the whole plan was a bit of a failure.
But as a one off it may yet make my fortune on Antiques Roadshow.

Nearly hidden behind that is a blackened with age shield, totally worthless except to me. It records my being presented with a best actor award in the Universities Drama festival in about 1968.

Next is an old French Champagne glass, picked up somewhere in a junk shop and now filled with old marbles which are actually made of marble and which I have gathered over the years.

Then comes the frigger, a piece of glass made on their own time by a glass worker with scraps from the Waterford factory, (and another possible fortune maker)

In front of that is an old ink well which one of my children found in a stream when we were having a drink one afternoon in a pub in Halfway House.

Then there are two coffee bowls, both with spongeware motifs, picked up at different times in brocantes in France.

I’m keeping all of these!
Let him who is without clutter discard the first one.