I spent all day yesterday tidying the downstairs library, the one with reference books, history, and Edmund's collection of Notable British Trials and other stuff about crime and law. How did I end up with so many reference books I don't use? That's easy -- Google and Wikipedia. On Tuesday I shall phone up my old high school and offer a library donation.

One grim job I haven't even cracked is sorting out the thousands of photographs I have taken over the 35 years since I got my first camera. Most of the early ones are awful, but some are quite good and even some of the awful ones have interesting information in them. I also have rather a lot of old family photos going back to Great-Uncle Harold, M.D., in his Canadian Army Medical Corps uniform circa 1916 -- a really nice portrait by a high-class Montreal studio, but what in blazes to do with it? The whole lot is bundled into two large plastic bins, now stashed in the cellar. At least they're safe from damp, which is better than before.

The space under the cellar stairs is now empty. The last of the stuff that was stashed there is boxed up and awaiting pick-up, thanks to Freecycle. Bye-bye 15-year-old duvet (leaks feathers, but warm and pretty clean considering; replaced with washable silk-fibre quilt). Farewell, the three-generation accumulation of table linen that ends with me. Only a fool would use cloth table mats when her otherwise wonderful spouse insists on putting his used cutlery down on the table instead of his plate, and I ain't no fool.