Time for a clear out

I HAVE a whole drawer full of odd socks in the bedroom. But why? It’s not as if their partners are suddenly going to dance out from behind the washing machine for a joyous reunion.

- Anna Pavord

And behind the mahogany doors of the wardrobe is a cavalcade of 30 years of fashion, including bell-bottom trousers from the first time they came around. I find it extremely difficult to get rid of things.

It’s the same in the garden. I can make a case for the Pisa-esque towers of plant pots in the potting shed. Plastic, yes, but recycled. Endlessly. From time to time, some will float off to a fête, planted up with divisions of cymbidiums and Spuria iris, although not often enough to make a real difference. Fortunately, plants are now most likely to come from swaps with friends, swaddled in newspaper rather than plastic. The towers may not be shrinking much, but at least they have stopped growing.

Leaning against the wall in one corner of the potting shed is a clutch of hoes of different sizes, a mattock, a pitchfork… all with heavy wooden handles. They belonged to my father’s uncle, a schoolmaster of a type that perhaps does not exist now: tall, solitary, ascetic, a mountaineer, formidably well read. He kept a fine orchard, a huge vegetable garden and grew splendid auriculas. As well as his tools, I have his meticulous garden diaries, which stretch from his retirement in March 1945 to his death in June 1962. I don’t use his tools —they are too heavy for me— but knowing his diaries so well, how could I throw them away?