Now I tend to think of Christine as a ‘hoarder’. She keeps old magazines in piles all over the house. We have ornaments and things stuck in cupboards that never see the light of day. We have Joe and Amber’s first shoes, we have christening spoons and plates, we have all sorts of old implements in the kitchen draws that not only don’t we use we wouldn’t know what they were for if we wanted to use them. We have chests and blanket boxes filled with curtains and bits of material because “you never know when we may need them”. I know they haven’t been needed in the last ten years at least but you never know!


So over the years I have tried to get rid of many of these items only for Christine to say “Just put them in the boot of the car, I’ll take them to the charity shop”. So into the car boot they go and the next time I need to take rubbish to the local tip they are still in there and I then put them into the shed. As you know not long ago I had got to the point where I could no longer get in the sheds so something had to be done.


A car boot sale, that’s what we need.


We had got to this point a few weeks ago but then Christine started reclaiming many of the things for the car boot to go back in the cupboards in the house never to be seen again but this time it may different. Alex and the kids are here and I ask them to go through their wardrobes and toy boxes, that’s Joe and Amber’s toy boxes I don’t think Alex still has one although we do still have dolls and dolls houses from when she was little but they are going on e-bay apparently. But maybe this time we will finish up with plenty to car boot.


Well this morning my plan is to get everything out of the sheds and have a look at what we have and sort of think about prices, this may seem a waste of time as nothing ever sells for more than £2 and most things for 20p, so down the shed I go suggesting that Joe and Amber come along to help if they want a share out of the proceeds. So we set up the table and I start passing things out of the shed.


There are Barbie dolls, a miniature snooker table, some electronic games, some Simpson comics, coloured boxes, a pink bus that opens up and many other items, but then eventually the kids stop appearing at the shed door. I assume the table is full and they are trying to find places to put things, Wrong! They found somewhere to put things, their bedrooms. They are as bad as Christine. I explain to them that if we have nothing to sell we will not get any money and their share will of course be nothing. I see them thinking about this and very quickly their need for another computer game is greater than their need for a fluffy pink cuddly toy that has been in the shed for two years or a miniature snooker table that was never used when it was new.


So we gather everything together on the table outside the shed and decide we have enough to have a car boot sale. At this point, naturally for this summer,we have a downpour of rain and I am now trying to dry everything and put it back in the shed. Every one else is of course very busy and needs to be some where other than out in the rain drying junk.


So there we have it, enough for a car boot sale now all we have to do is decide on where we are going and when. It must be this week because Alex and the kids go back to Barcelona after the week end and the kids want to be there to make sure they get their cut of the dosh. I don’t believe for one minute it will happen and it certainly won’t once the kids have gone back. Christine doing a car boot? It’ll just never happen, but if it does ours will be the only table with a table cloth and it will of course match the colour of the car. I’ll keep you posted.