The Bluestocking. All gerbils welcome, must have own frou-frou skirt.

[Magpiecomplex]

New thread!

Slippy! that brings me back to my clubbing days in London when Born Slippy just summed it all up

Thankfully I didn't know what all the words were😱 and just happily joined in with Lager! Lager!
Thank you for reminding me, I could do with a burst of that high energy from my distant past when I could [a] dance [b] all night

Yikes! I'll pass the mind-bleach, @Hairyesterdaygonetoday!

@Boiledbeetle - I absolutely get the appeal of Stuff and the acquisition of Stuff. If I wasn't really stern with myself, I could easily become a hoarder. Dh and I talk occasionally about downsizing - once he stops working, it would be better for us to live somewhere that was cheaper to run, and his MS might mean he needs a bungalow in the future (at the moment he has no symptoms, and hasn't had any since he was diagnosed pre-Covid) - but at the moment, we have all the Stuff to fill a 4 bed house, so we know we will need a major declutter.

Every New Year we say this will be the year when we actually do the decluttering. We do not do it.

DH is both something of an acquirer and hoarder, but also periodically a declutterer. Having had to empty a large bookcase full mostly of books we're very unlikely to read or never read (inherited from parents - not valuable just sentimental) I'm hoping to persuade him to have a cull.

DH would definitely be a hoarder if he didn't make efforts to control it. I suspect it is because his late father had early onset Alzheimer's disease and DH is afraid if he has it, he needs the physical memories as he can't rely on his mind.

I'm with William Morris "Have nothing in your house that you know is not useful or believe to be beautiful ". ( Slight paraphrase)

I'm with William Morris "Have nothing in your house that you know is not useful or believe to be beautiful ".

One of the problems is all those things that you're 99%sure are no longer useful but if you chuck them out you're then going to find a use for.
Another is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder...DH inherited a few things I find decidedly ugly but he's attached to.

Apologies for the delay Glenda was having trouble attaching her fascinator.

DH is definitely on the "hang onto it - it might come in handy" end of the spectrum, and so am I with books. We need to do serious decluttering. We have a two car garage in which there is no room for even one car. We also have a basement and an attic with stuff in them. We don't do it either.

OMG, if only I'd known about this! 😂

Surely you could make money selling these things now? If only you hadn't got rid of the coleoptermobile, you could be doing car boot sales.

Glenda Gerbil!! Stop it now! Gerbil fur is far more attractive than frilly polyester tat.

Actually, GlendaGerbil is a great user name.

GlendaGerbilsFascinator is even more MN.

If you say so...😩

It's the other way round for me and the walrus. He came up with the idea of the kitten cloud.

It's where the kittens frolic on clouds in a sunny sky. Anything that I don't want but can't bear to.part with gets send to the recycling while I'm not looking kitten cloud.

Odd wine glasses that take up room so we can't put lovely new wine glasses there? Off to the kitten cloud.

Greetings cards from years ago that should have been recycled? Kitten cloud.

Gifted body lotion that I never use? Charity shop. Kitten cloud.

Here's my tidying tale of woe: 'you're going to need a bigger box'.

I decide 'Right, those [insert name of items] really need to be rounded up and put in one box in one place. Now get tidying!'

So I get a box and I dutifully go around gathering all the whatevers together, put them in their new box.. only to find that the box isn't quite big enough, so I now either need the existing big plus another small one - awkward to store- or get a bigger box and start from scratch. Or just say ah feck it..

It keeps happening. I'm obviously hopeless at guessing cubic capacity😠

Bad news yesterday indicated I'll need to buy a new (used) car - realised in the middle of the night that will mean going to the garage in order to remove from my old car a shooting stick, an umbrella, my good gloves, Tracy the triceratops, several shopping bags, at least three bottles of holy water, a box of tissues, a bottle of de-icer spray, many many old parking tickets, many many many church newsletters, my lottery tickets, some small change (including that £1 I found in a shopping trolley), the calf ration bags I put over the windscreen in frosty weather

maybe some other stuff

. . .

Just as well I'm not one of those pesky hoarders, and that I keep it fairly clutter-free.

Sorry about the bad car new Deano.

You're going to need a box, and probably another one after that cos the first one will be to small😒

@MyrtleLion I love it! He's a genius.

@MarieDeGournay But now you need somewhere to put all the boxes...

I always feel a little sad on looking in a charity shop and noticing they've suddenly got a shelf full of Lladro or Lilliput Lane. I think that someone's mum (it's usually mums that get burdened with this tat) has died or gone to a nursing home and a house has been decluttered. Did she ever actually like this stuff, or was she given one once, seemed to like it and then it became the lazy go-to for every Christmas or birthday? They'd have been better giving the money directly to the shop in mum's name.

I try to avoid charity shops, they bring out my usually deeply buried pessimist.

Otoh, Glenda looks lovely in her fascinator. It's not my cup of tea, but if it makes her happy.

Looking good there, Cake. That fascinator really suits you.

In fact, I like it so much I'm trying out the look myself.

I think we all know where this is leading.

Actually, I think Myrtle wins paws down. It won't get any better than this.

That's such a lovely idea!

D'you think the kittens would like half a dozen packets of screws and wall-plugs, a soldering iron, a lot of duplicate drill bits and a cordless hedge trimmer that's nearly as good as the shiny new one I couldn't resist buying myself. And an indeterminate number of Allen key sets, which I swear are breeding, why would I have bought four of them.. five of them...er six??🙄

Do puffins wear fascinators or have they already got enough feathers on their heads?

For anyone who cares about such things, today I am mostly wearing black nail varnish with a coat of Peace Love &OPI over it & a glossy top coat. The OPI shines & is purple, green, brown or grey-blue depending on how you look at it in various types of light against various backgrounds. Magic.

I really should make some proper art one of these days.

Seems they can rock a fascinator just as well as the rest of us.