Well... this is something I have been looking forward to for so long... because... it's not mine... it's someone I love's "hoard". And when I say hoard, I mean rammed to the gills. Not just the garage but our workshop too.

Now I should feel vindicated but I actually feel strange after the clear-out... I think it's one of those things that you don't take on board till it's done. I found myself thinking all sorts of things... I wish I'd known about this right from the start... was it my fault that I "let" it get out of hand... did I somehow enable it...

Of course it's not something you discuss generally. It's almost like a dirty little secret and I've let it out of the closet. One of the first ways to take a step forward is the person admitting they have a problem. Bit like an alcoholic. But we never really discussed it. There have been so many collections... tanks, trains, planes, books, pen-knives, guitars... and the list goes on. It is a thing that runs in the family with two others and one person is so out of hand with it they never invite anyone inside the house. It is a no-go area. People have stood on the door step and not been let in. No one comes around for dinner, or a cup of tea, for anything. And I think that is so very sad.

I have been more patient than a previous person who chucked everything out – no discussion... gone. And this was a repeat of something else where stuff had to be left behind because there wasn't enough room in the removal van. Can you imagine it? As a child your beloved collections are left behind... not put in the car or gone back for. And then that child takes it upon themselves to walk back to where they lived to ask the new people if they still had kept the bits and pieces. How very brave and how very poignant. Of course they didn't have the bits – had slung them. And that stays with a person. So they try and buy back that lost part of childhood... but they don't know when to stop. So after a while when I heard about that, I had great sympathy.

But I have been impressed by the way that the task has been tackled and that there isn't a painful big discussion about everything... where you almost have to go through pros and cons of holding on to something... like you see with some really bad hoarders on the TV.

The decluttering of the house has somehow decluttered our minds a little and we will have places for everything. I have given quite a few bits and pieces to a local charity – which feels lovely – and the rest is being sorted.

I realise that on the scale of things things aren't as bad for us as they were on TV but they were disrupting, draining and frustrating at the very least...

Liz

A Moodscope member.