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bowlingbun Online
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- Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:19 pm
Fri Mar 13, 2020 12:21 pm
Swedish Death Cleaning (Don't be put off by the title!)
This is a really useful book to help declutter either our own stuff, or our carees. I just wish I'd known about this when my hoarder mum was alive!! It gives a really useful view on possessions, their significance, how to realise when you have too much (relief that visitors have cancelled so you don't have to tidy up!) and how to get rid of things happily so the house is always OK.
I spent every childhood summer holiday with my dad's mum, my Granny Thomas. She lived in a tiny cottage and had everything that she needed, but nothing else. She had jigsaw puzzles for rainy days, books for all ages, all her sewing and knitting stuff, I can't ever remember her never having what we needed, but nothing else.
Reading Swedish Death Cleaning I realised it's not a modern concept at all. Granny Thomas did it 50 years ago!! I'm working on being just like her.
Then I thought about our early married years, we lived in Australia on a 3 year working "holiday" always planning to settle in the UK again, when we'd made enough money to buy the house we wanted. We didn't want to take too much stuff back with us, so I was very carful not to buy too much household stuff, especially as our home in the UK, rented out to my sister in law, then my best friend, was already fully equipped.
I managed very well to keep to this. My husband ended up bringing 2 rare vintage motorbikes home (an EMC split single 2 stroke and a BSA 1,000 cc Colonial G14 for bike enthusiasts). They came home in 2 wooden crates with my household stuff packed round them!
Buying our "forever house" was wonderful, we loved having our extended family round, 10 of us regularly sat down for meals. My eldest son has gently pointed out that I'll never be able to cook like that again because of my arthritis, so I really don't need all those baking tins! This book has helped me give "the evil eye" to a load more stuff.