A place for everything...

When we moved back into the study after the extended decorating saga the objective uppermost in our minds was to clear all the junk out of the other rooms. We'd been shuffling and edging past it for months and we just wanted our space back. We took a few things up into the attic and obviously we set up the desks and the PCs the way we wanted them, but pretty much everything else got dumped in piles all over the study.

And not even logical piles. Simply the piles they'd been in during the refurb, and some of them were consolidated during the move back.

Today was the day we agreed we'd left it long enough. Those "few precious weeks" of relaxation that I referred to the day we moved back in have become seven weeks and it's time to tidy up!

We didn't finish, but in the end I was pleased with progress. All of the piles of paper have gone from the floor, as have all the boxes except those containing CDs (there's a reason they are being left behind). There's been much throwing away, a deal of sorting, and some more carrying up into the attic. The wireless printer is now in its permanent home atop the filing cabinet and we're down to a single table's worth of sorting and filing.

We both would have made more progress today had it not been for our mutual distraction with the contents of two small boxes left over from the house move. The contents of our bedside tables. Sorting through these was like a walk back through the memories of the last few years. Programmes from the Royal Exchange, tickets from concerts, birthday, Christmas, and Father's Day cards going back to when Natalie had only just learned to write her name, and several large piles of cards from Nikki, from the days when we lived apart. Still smelling faintly of her perfume (we used to spray them before sending them) and still holding their secret messages. Those two small boxes - one each - took us more than half the day to sort through, but the rediscovered memories made it time well spent and our smiles stayed with us the rest of the weekend.