You should always throw as you go

Bad Ischl

When we arrived from Australia we had quite a bit of stuff that we knew we would need – but that did not fit into the apartment. This included our Scuba gear, tool sets and (I kid you not) – 50 cartons of books.

The books remain almost untouched because there is simply nowhere to put them. We have a big bookshelf that is full of some of the books we brought with us and the books we have bought since we have been here.

There remain –in the basement – 43 cartons of books.

To this has been added enormous piles of stuff including old towels, old sheets, old rugs and the accumulation of 4 years living in an apartment.

Also there are the 8 chairs which go with our Nicholas Dattner dining table. For a change of scenery we got new leather chairs but we cannot throw the other chairs away because they go with the table – which is very special.

It is made from a single piece of timber from the old Goldsbrough Mort wool stores in Melbourne and has its provenance detailed on a bronze plaque underneath the table.

To this we can add the roof racks which I bought for the car three years ago in anticipation of driving with our bicycles to various scenic places in Austria. Needless to say – this has not yet happened.

It is now very difficult to get into the basement so I have decided that the time has come to make some ruthless decisions. This is the penalty you pay for not adopting a throw-as-you-go policy.

To be continued