Paperwork and a Repaint

The paperwork seems endless. No sooner do I think I've answered the last query than another one presents.

Last week I agreed to apply for a lease extension. Thank goodness the quote was  the same as the one made in January, when the buyer wasn't interested in renewing. She'd  go ahead with the purchase and renew the lease 'further down the line'. Her solicitor said there could be a 'catastrophic' rise in the price, so best to do it now. The time limit for responding is the same- one month. So long as she bears the cost I don't mind either way.

OK. I photocopy the new offer letter and take it to the solicitor's (so glad I chose one located on the edge of the heath, next door to a pub)

Almost immediately comes a query about roof repairs. A January  storm lifted the edge of the flat roof that covers the block. It didn't affect us, but damage to the next door flat and repairs  were mentioned in one of the questionnaires. Not the 'who-are-you?' one that made you feel like a  spy or illegal asylum seeker, but the one that hints at how you've neglected  the place, inside and out, ever since it was a mere twinkle in the architect's eye.

To access  the documents I need to contact the own of a neighbouring flat . He chairs the management committee and keeps all the paperwork. Fortunately, I catch him on the day before he goes on holiday.

I get the feeling that  I'm being drip-fed queries from a long list and I wish I knew how many more to come before  the end.

Despite the million or so forms to complete and photocopy and the endless queries, I've found a bit of time to throw things out, literally. I lowered some black plastic bags from the walkway to the garage area yesterday. Roy was at the bottom, untying knots and chatting to one of the painters who'd stopped for lunch.  I must say they've made a splendid job of restoration - the block gleams like an ocean-going liner.

And the flat looks less like one in a TV programme I saw, called 'The Hoarder next Door'.

Decluttering

 

The contracts aren’t signed yet, but we need to think about moving our stuff from here to Southport. It isn’t going to be cheap, may have to be done in two stages and there’s no point in paying to move things we don’t need.

No point in pretending , either,  that our furniture is ‘shabby chic’ . Old IKEA tat in nearer the mark. My facebook chums tell me what I know in my heart – that flat-pack furniture doesn’t travel. It doesn’t even stay put very well, if I was the original  assembler.  ('Do you have to do that now, Sheila? I'm trying to watch the cricket.')Most of it can go to charities, albeit my sister hints that British Heart Foundation may draw the line at our stuff. Maybe the clearance people will take it when they come to empty the garage. At a price, no doubt.

 In some ways the furniture isn't a problem, once we've decided which items to jettison and which to keep. The removal men or the clearance people will see it them. Books, VHS tapes and papers are more troublesome.

I can’t believe that since we cleared the spare room of our main cache of books there’s so much left. When my son returned from Brussels to a job at Canary Wharf he occupied the spare room and we filled about twenty black sacks. All went into the garage. Very occasionally I look for something in there, usually without success.

Some have accused me of hoarding. To them I say, you try to teach English and Media , write a film book , magazine  articles and stories and learn four  foreign languages, and see if you don’t gather some moss.

Roy pretends that two shelves of bridge books are so slight  as to be almost  invisible and guards  dozens of VHS tapes, not to mention volumes of Dickens,  Betjeman and out-of-date Halliwell Film Guides. 

The other day he agreed to empty a small cupboard above the built-in wardrobe in the bedroom, used for storing electricity cables and the like . There were even a couple of empty boxes that once held the Bose radio and the DVD player. What really got me, though, was the discovery of a dozen or so vinyl record albums - rescued and carefully hidden when he agreed to sell his jazz collection ten years ago!

Interestingly, there's a whole literature about decluttering, available for those who are about to move or clear a house. The accumulation and dispersal of things, it seems,  is not so much a practical as a psychological challenge.  And it's partly to do with when you were born.