I spent two days last week helping my brother move house -- quite an evolution. He surprised us all by finally finding Ms Right at the age of 60, and now they are in the process of blending their households in the hope that the chaos will have more or less died down by their wedding day, scheduled for mid-August. It's going to take that long for them to dig out from under the avalanche of books, kitchen traps and heavy old-fashioned furniture.

Once again, I was taught a lesson in the unimportance of Stuff. It accumulates so easily, filling the corners of our living space, catching dust, and inviting mice, spiders and moths to move in and nest. My bachelor brother lived in that flat for 15 years and never once washed the curtains or cleaned the top of the kitchen cabinets -- yikes! During that time, he acquired hundreds of books, CDs, records and games of all kinds, and seems never to have parted with a thing until this winter.

After the movers had packed the material he's taking into the next phase of his life (about half of what was there, excluding furniture), it suddenly became a really good idea to shove everything salvageable of the remainder into bags and boxes for the Sally Army and consign the rest to construction-grade garbage bags. We did it without a backward glance.