Hoarders.....

People laugh at me - yes they do. I could end this blog post now really couldn't I?

But I'll continue...

People laugh at me and scoff when they realise the stuff I hoard. I have every little bit of sentiment over the last 30-ahem years of my life. I have birthday cards from milestone birthdays or from people who mean something to me. I also have every love-letter I have ever received - not as many as befits a woman of my age but I digress. I have school diaries with sweet wrappers that have notes on them. Even a train timetable that my friends wrote all over when I left Cape Town. It's sentimental rubbish - as many would say.

And I have been thinking of trashing some of it, but every little one holds a story - that thankfully I still have the faculties to remember. Tonight, all those years of keeping stuff bore fruit.

Upstairs on the landing, I have a cabinet from my England Nana - it's a lovely piece of furniture and it holds things like my hair crap on the top but inside it's a treasure trove. My year books from high school, favourite poetry books and my first ever school suitcase. (I kid you not - I still have my school bag from age 6 - I did say I hoarded).

And in this suitcase are various things, stories I've written and a few photographs. But also I found some birthday cards from my S-A Nana - and they are beautiful. The one is one for CG to treasure, where she writes 'CG has stolen my heart and I so wish I could watch him grow up'.  And the other one where she has realised she's in the stages of dementia and writes to me 'my mind isn't working so well, but it tries really hard'.

And that is partly why I hoard. I had forgotten about those cards and those words and I cannot tell you how lovely it was to read them. To see her handwriting. People just don't write enough to each other these days.... oh I can feel a rant a-brewing. ;)

I might just get those love letters out in a moment for those days when I'm feeling all 'wormy'... you know 'nobody loves me, everybody hates me - I'm gonna eat some worms' kind of mood.