The tat and the tip

'Make the most of your weekends,' people tell us, 'relax and spend some quality time together before the baby arrives.' Wise words indeed and, this weekend, Mrs B and I ignored them completely to spend both days knee deep in a mountain of assorted rubbish.

It wasn't that we didn't want to relax, it was more that the ever multiplying amount of baby-related odds and sods, coupled with about 20-years' worth of clutter, meant that the long overdue 'sort out' was now becoming unavoidable. It was either that, or we'd start putting together a nursery that featured a cot, baby changing unit, desk, computer, piles of old magazines and parts of a gym! Not the most relaxing of environments for Baby B, although he/she would develop strong biceps given time.

So this weekend was spent with Mrs B sorting through boxes of things downstairs, while I busied myself banging my head and cursing in the loft. And what en eye opening exercise it proved to be.

Mass clear outs serve as a wake up call, making it evident to the clearers just how much rubbish they have kept over the years. For instance, our rummage revealed boxes of old Christmas and birthday cards - yes, lovely at the time, but why keep them for 10 years? Then there were the piles of work from old jobs, serving to do nothing but remind us of how much we did for such little money and why we left the jobs in the first place. Ten-year-old cosmetics, tennis rackets with broken strings, random pieces of furniture, cracked picture frames, 100s of VHS tapes (presumably kept in case VHS ever has a resurgence in popularity, and despite our lack of a VHS player) and ditto with casette tapes.

By 3pm on Sunday afternoon I had developed a perma-bruise on the top of my head from one particularly low-lying loft beam and we had filled the car with an impressive array of tat. A trip to the local tip (itself an eye opening experience) disposed of the junk and we have been left with separate piles of useful tat for charity shops, ebay and the inevitable car-boot sale.

Little does Baby B know how much work his/her mum and dad are doing ahead of his/her arrival. However, our little one has already helped us to declutter our lives, to focus our energies on creating a loving home and to finally get rid of those dumbbells that have made me feel guilty for ignoring them over the past 10 years!

Now, anyone fancy making a bid for Top Gun on VHS?