52) 9th October 2026 - So what have I learned so far.

Ten weeks in - what have I learned so far.? 

On a whim today I ripped off the wallpaper I've always hated. I have great plans for that wall.

So he's been gone about 10 weeks now, and life has been... interesting!

I have found many interesting things at the house, we will deal with them later. 

I spoke to the next door neighbour at the house yesterday, he mentioned how he'd watched the bin men collecting the blue recycling bags that morning. These bags are similar to the Blue Ikea bags, slightly bigger and a bit stronger. We have managed to get the local council to let us have three of these. Looking at the surrounding houses, the bags usually get to be about a quarter to a third full - a few newspapers, junk mail, food wrappers etc. The bags are collected weekly.

The neighbour said the bin men get to the house and look through the bags as they're so heavy, they don't believe there's just paper in there. They check and it is only paper. They then visibly brace to pick the bags up and empty them into the vehicle.

And there's more to come. I'd estimate we're about a third of the way through the total volume of paperwork in the house. Sixty-five years of keeping every bit of paper that has ever come into the house; 

• every newspaper
• every junk leaflet
• every bank statement
• every annual review for life insurance
• every bit of paper from packaging
• every receipt
• every school book anyone ever owned (inc his parents)
• every photograph
• every cereal box
• every envelope
• every payslip
• every bill and invoice
• every monthly utility bill
• every letter ever sent to him
• every Christmas Card
• every birthday card for the whole family
• every life insurance annual update
• every shoebox
• a copy of every letter he ever wrote
• every school report or letter from the school
• every annual report

Our job, myself and Ant is to go through EVERYTHING to sort the needed stuff from the rubbish. We have boxes and boxes of paper queueing up to fill the blue bags. I take these boxes to the recycling centre each time I take a Freddy-full and still there's more. So much more... Sometimes I take a blue bag or two full and drop it outside friend's houses as their collection day is different, this way we have a collection two or three times a week. And yet still there's more. It's the house that never stops giving.

I work three days a week and I'm at the house every other day. I want to keep going before Mr Mojo desserts me. Yesterday I was there for 8.15am, I started by filing Freddie (my car) so he was ready to go. There was an old carpet offcut, 12 unpaired shoes, several old radios, a box of bits of wood, 2 old stuffed toys, a box of rags for recycling, 3 black bags full of rubbish, 18 bits of mouldy plasterboard, and the rest of the space was packed with flattened cardboard boxes.