It’s done. For the last few years, whenever we’ve mentioned the amount of stuff we have accumulated over the last 28 years I’ve said.. “Well, when we leave I’ll put a sign at the end of the road that says “house contents sale” sell the lot and leave.. And now we’ve done it.. It was exhausting. Emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting. 300 people came over the course of 4 hours.. It was like being burgled in slow motion. At one point you couldn’t get in or out of the house past people with armfuls of our belongings queuing in the hall to pay. And despite the clearly labelled signs on virtually everything, over and over again they asked me “How much do you want for this?”

How much do you want for the huge wall clock that for 20 years has told you that it’s time for school or to start tea or helped you count the minutes until a friend arrives. How much do you want for the little armchair that you have prayed in, cried in and daydreamed in each morning? The little one by the Aga that friends have confided secrets in and God has kept you company in while you made supper for a stranger? How much do you want?
The truth is I don’t really want anything at all for ‘it’ because there isn’t a price that reflects what ‘it’ meant to me.. But there is something I want more. I want it more than the things around me and more than the security of knowing what tomorrow will bring.
So I make up a price for the desk, the chair, the clock and the dress. I give away the books and the pictures and the rugs and the lamps. And more that more that goes the better I feel, the less I have the more I have to give.
Ella xx