In a recent blog post I mentioned I had been doing a substantial amount of decluttering. I’ve been meaning to get a handle on it for a long time and I’ve done a little here and there but I got rid of box loads of stuff this time and it felt good!

I’m not finished of course – I only really did one cupboard and a few boxes but it has made a big difference.

Dearest son and I took the boxes to a place not far from us which is right beside the local dump, oh sorry, ‘recycling centre’. Theres a couple of large polytunnels selling everything from furniture to ornaments, with books (3 for £1), clothes and everything inbetween! Its an Aladdin’s cave of treasures, treats and thrift – all of which would otherwise be getting dumped.

When we got to the car park, I notice what looked like 2 families leaving together with a number of children of various ages. So, I took our boxes, bags and so on out the car and noticed a couple of the kids looking over. An older girl spied the ‘grow your own crystal’ set, a younger boy was shyly eyeing the cars and boys toys spilling out the box.

“Would you like any of this?”, I asked.

They looked questioningly at their parents who looked at me. I pointed out I was only going to be carrying it up the stairs so the folks there could sell it on – or they could take it now for free.

The girl took the crystal growing set and the little microscope.

One boy took cars, a book, and squealed when he saw the wooden dinosaur shapes for drawing round.

An even younger boy rummaged through the boxes and was soon standing with his two little arms full of cars, army men, Spiderman toys and walked away happily wearing oversized green plastic glasses.

In the end I took 1 box up the stairs instead of 2 – the family needed the other one to put all the stuff into!

It did make me wonder – how long will it be before you need to declutter and all that stuff will be brought back here? It was a nice thought though that our clutter was seen as treasure by kids who would enjoy it instead of it sitting in a box in a cupboard for another couple of years!