Never, ever throw anything away!! I'm one of those people who are always trying to chuck things out whereas P is a terrible hoarder of cr*p (well, I think it's cr*p, he thinks it 'might come in useful'!!) Though I've have recently made some headway with getting him to sort through the mountain of detritus he insists on holding onto and 27 shirts, 4 ties and 6 pairs of never-worn socks have recently been liberated from the depths of his side of the wardrobe and sent off to the local charity shop. (And, in true charity-shop-donation-karma, P found eight beautiful pure silk ties for 50p each in another charity shop the other day.)
Anyway, I digress. Last winter P snapped the head off the yard brush by attempting to clear snow with it. I was not best pleased at the time and even less pleased when he insisted on keeping hold of the long wooden brush handle as 'it might come in useful'. As it could stay out in the garden, I thought we might as well hold on to it for the time being. Turns out, it proved to be very useful indeed.
On Wednesday afternoon I realised that the drain from the kitchen sink to the highly dodgy pipework that passes for drainage in this house (it has been described as 'an absolute shocker' by one plumber we had here) was totally blocked. I managed to get the cover off the small drain near the back door and poked about ineffectively with an old garden cane. All I managed to do with stir up some evil-smelling gunk and gunge but I couldn't clear the blockage. Along comes P who levered up the nearest man-hole cover, grabs the old wooden broom handle and starts poking and prodding furiously. Meanwhile, I'd gone to get the number of the local plumber / handyman and was most astonished to come back out to the garden and find a triumphant P and an unblocked drain.
It took us significant amounts of pouring buckets of water down the drain to finally clear all the debris but after about half-an-hour of swilling and sluicing everything out, the whole system was running clear again. So, the moral of the story is, never throw anything out as even the unlikeliest item can come in useful and can save you £20 (minimum) in having to call in someone to rod a blocked drain.
My Dad has a set of drain rods so we can sort that out ourselves if necessary (When I say we, I of course don't mean me).
As for throwing things out, I find I keep things for years and years and the only time I ever need them is three days after I got rid of them!
Posted by: Debbie | 08/15/2012 at 09:35 AM