When tidy is a dirty word (From Watford Observer)

When tidy is a dirty word

11:37am Monday 8th June 2009

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I’m one of life’s hoarders. Like a scaly old dragon, there’s nothing I like more than being surrounded by my accumulated treasures. These, unfortunately, are not piles of glittering jewels or priceless golden objet d’art gathered from far-flung lands. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The problem is that I like to hold on to anything ‘just in case‘.

As a write this, a tottering pile of magazines in the bathroom is threatening to avalanche into the tub. I keep them on the side next to the towels to dip into when I’m enjoying a long luxurious soak.

If this conjures up an image of sybaritic excess, I’d better point out that I’ve lost count of the number of times my ‘long luxurious soak’ has been interrupted by a score or so magazines toppling into the bath with me necessitating some pretty unrelaxed Moby-Dick type thrashing around. This is usually topped off by me having to flounder out of the bubbles to spend five undignified minutes hanging them on the radiator to dry.

(They have to be papier mache soggy before I throw them away).

In the living room, my husband keeps tripping over a similar printed stash that has a nasty habit of creeping out from under the sofa where I’ve stowed it away for future reference.

“Do you really need this issue of Glamour from October 2006?” he’ll ask wearily, the offending, slightly dusty, coffee-ringed magazine held aloft between finger and thumb as if he’s discovered an unwelcome rodent next to his slippers.

Of course, as any hoarder worth her salt will know, the obvious answer to this is yes.

For example, there may well come a time in the not-too-distant future when I’ll ‘need’ to refer to that article on page 134 about getting a bikini-fit body. And what about the five-page diet pull-out promising me that I’ll drop a dress size in four weeks?

This is clearly research gold - despite appearances to the contrary, including a dead spider hanging off the back cover.

Another magazine recently unearthed from the stygian gloom beneath the sofa included the cover line: “Questions you must ask your plastic surgeon.” Now, I’m not considering going under the knife just yet - even though I’ve started standing in front of the mirror and contemplatively hoiking my jowls back to ear level - but if I ever did decide to put a pleat in my double chin, this is obviously the sort of information I’ll need to hand.

My husband didn’t agree with me however, and half an hour later this particular magazine - a copy of Red from April 2005 - and around 50 of its backdated mates found themselves in the recycling box in our front garden.

“…and I pity the man who has to lift that lot,” snarked my husband as he added a final copy of Easy Living c. February 2007 to the haul with a disdainful flourish.

It’s not just magazines that I find it difficult to part with. I just can’t bear throwing anything printed away in case I miss something important, useful or potentially interesting.

I have this terrible nagging fear that if it wasn’t for the fact that my husband is constantly on top of the case, I’d end up as one of those elderly women discovered alone in one room of a suburban semi. One dark day I’d be found hemmed into the corner of my kitchen, surrounded by hundreds of teetering, yellowing piles containing 70 years’ worth of untouched Waitrose recipe cards.

(Also, I’d quite possibly have an impressive collection of part-feral cats.)

Despite the fact that we’ve recently carried out a major magazine cull chez nous, there’s still a pile of stuff in the house that offends my husband’s sense of order.

One armchair in the living room is almost entirely camouflaged by paperwork. The detritus piled up on the cushions includes unpaid bills, birthday cards waiting to be sent to friends, unsolicited communications from local handymen that I’ve kept in case of future emergencies and, rather hilariously for anyone who knows me well, exotically challenging recipes torn from newspapers.

This chair is also the last resting place of various beautifully presented catalogues from swanky, designer home companies. These are full of images of breathtakingly minimal, Scandinavian-inspired homes painted in calming shades of white, cream and duck egg blue.

Cool northern light floods through the open windows, illuminating the clean lines, restrained good taste and clutter-free existence enjoyed by the minor deities who supposedly live among us in homes like these.

Leafing through the gorgeousness, you just know that you’d never spot a ball of mysterious grey fluff under their sofas.

Sometimes in the pictures you catch a fleeting, soft-focus glimpse of the Nordic gods and goddesses permitted to inhabit these Valhallas of design perfection. They are always tall, blond and dressed in entirely in white.

If Adolf Hitler had confined his ambitions to running a homeware catalogue company, it would probably have looked something like this.

Even their children are golden-haired, rosy-cheeked moppets, photographed in pristine playrooms where I’m willing to bet that the sticky hand of a genuine toddler has never made contact with any of the toys on offer.

It all looks so lovely and restful in LebensbornLand.com

I must admit that I keep these catalogues for inspiration, after all, these are the sort of rooms I aspire to.

Sadly, my living room generally looks like a trashed hobbit burrow. And I won’t even mention the bedroom, where, at present, I can’t actually close the wardrobe door because of the unfeasibly large amount of clothing crammed onto to rail.

“Why do you need so much stuff?” wailed my husband yesterday evening as he burrowed into the fabric cave trying to locate a clean shirt.

There’s that 'need' word again. The answer, of course, is that I don’t ‘need’ it: I just can’t bear throwing it away.

Mind you, I had a nasty shock this morning. While I was scrabbling among the fluff balls under the bed for a matching pair of shoes, I think I inadvertently came across my birthday present - a ‘lovely’ 10-compartment hanging wardrobe organiser!

Now, that’s surely something every girl dreams of?

Er…well, it’s definitely not, actually.

I think I’m going to have to tidy up my act pretty swiftly if I’m not to be on the receiving end of further presents I really ‘need‘.