Reasons and rubbish

You remember I said that we moved from France to Sydney simply “because we could”.

Well, there was a job opportunity that came up for hubby and since he is Aussie but had never really worked here after his PhD it seemed like a good idea. Also he has an elderly father that he wanted to see more of and my elderly mother who lived with us in France was happy to come along. So with much trepidation and anguish but also with a lot of excitement we decided to do it. The decision was hugely helped by the fact that it was just a five-year contract, so not forever. Also it turned out quite easy to find people to rent our house in France, so in August 2010 the removal people came and packed up. Boy, can they pack! When you have lived in a house for over 20 years, you tend to accumulate a lot of rubbish, but it was all packed up in two and a half days, in a 38° heat wave. Well, not all of it was packed up; we also did about 40 runs to the local tip and to charity shops.

Come to think of it, everybody should move once in a while to get that nice feeling of de-cluttering. You don’t all have to go to Australia to do it, in fact I guess you don’t have to move at all. Maybe normal people actually de-clutter all the time but somehow it hadn’t happened with us. We just put stuff up in the attic and in the garage for later, or for the kids or for the grand children. That was clearly not necessary, since the kids live very far away and don’t want their old stuff anyway and there are no grandchildren planned and when you go and try to find something that you know you put away you can’t find it anyway. So it is nice to get rid of things.

This brings me to my final point today.  Do you know what they do here in Australia with their old unwanted stuff? Instead of taking things to the tip they have a day or maybe two in the year when you put your old rubbish out in the street to be picked up. It’s a hoarder’s dream. There are armchairs, and sofas, and tables, and TVs, and everything you could possibly want (to throw away, of course!) At night you hear small trucks driving around, doing their rounds, to see what they can scavenge. Most people end up with more than they put out to begin with. But hey, like my nephew always says: “Reduce, reuse, recycle.” So it’s all good.