Sprout task replica

[shinytoaster]

L just made the most amazing brussel sprouts, braised in cream or something, I couldn't recite the recipe from memory or anything quite as spectacular as that. They were better than my Dad's, by a country mile. We'll be having those again. There's still half a packet left, after all.

I've been feeling a vague New Year New Me type vibe the past three days. It's the start of my fourth decade, I'll be 30 in a little over two years time, and overall I'm pretty content with how things are going, and hopefully we'll come back to that in posts yet to come, if I have the presence of mind to actually write them.

Anyhow, it's been a good catalyst to have an early spring clean and tidy up this pigsty of a flat. We spent most of Saturday - apart from side trips to Sainsbury's and the gym - sorting out boxes and boxes of paper and working the shredder overtime. We've filled four big recycling sacks with shredded documents, many of them have been following me around since I first moved to Harrow in 2005, and some of them since I left Brighton in 2004.

This morning, we drove up to the 'Western Riverside Waste Authority' (the tip), which is by the Thames in Wandsworth town centre, and got rid of a carload of paper, card, old clothes and various bits of junk that we had no need for.

I also binned several years worth of Attitudes and AXMs (gay mags), including the first gay magazine I ever bought in the Churchill Square Borders in May 2001, with Ivan Massow on the cover. I'd say it brought a lump to my throat to throw it out, but that would be a blatant lie; the fashions were a decade out of date, and as for the hot swimwear for summer '01 feature, well I'd die before I was caught dead in that pattern (kidding, kidding).

The upshot of this Kim 'n Aggie-style binge-chuck is, short term, a flat that we can move around in and isn't filled with any old shit, but psychologically, for me at least, a feeling of space and declutteryness that is, in all honesty, quite a nice way to start a decade.

I haven't wished anyone on here a Happy New Year yet and I know some of you are having a pretty lousy start to the year, so to you specifically I send good thoughts and to everyone in general, wishes for a clutter-free decade.

Comments

[bookshop]

happy new year, Alex. <3 to you and Lowell. *hugs* I miss you guys and hope you're doing well.

[glittertine]

Happy New Year to you, too! And what a fantastic way to start it! :)

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

Honey, when you turn 30, that makes me forty. I'm liking my thirties too much to want to hurry the move to middle age !

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

I don't think you get given that option, to be honest.

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

#sigh# No. And I want you to get the kind of happiness I'm finding in my thirties. But it sucks that you start your thirties practically just as I leave them.

[sophie10.livejournal.com]

The big clear out sounds like a good idea, I think I may have bank statements from 2006 lurking in my room.

Happy New Year!

[benjj.livejournal.com]

I think I might need to borrow your shredder - I was sorting through my pile of 'interesting but non-urgent things to read' and discovered bits from early 2008... a lot went into the recycling.

You know you've a couple more years to go before the start of your third decade! No need to get too depressed just yet!

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Completely unrelatedly, I have taken your #gameshowfilms idea and transmuted it from Twitter to a blog where it has really taken off. (Not saying that it hasn't taken off on Twitter.) Prepare to get obscure and enjoy.

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

Woo, flattered, but not my idea. Those hashtag games seem to come from nowhere, but I follow a few people who are quite into it and usually pick them up from there.