The things you find when you sort.

Sometimes I think my Mum could give Mr Trebus a run for his money, so much stuff does she hoard. She keeps and keeps; empty tea light holders because she might refill them one day and weird looking screws and more seeds than perhaps even God had to start the world with. Every surface in her house has things on it, it's hard to find a space to put anything down.

So about once a year things get a bit on top of her and she can't even find a place to put her cup of tea down so I go and help her sort it all out. We sort it all into the right places and we take stuff to the charity shop and the tip and I say, "You have to be ruthless, RUTHLESS!" quite a lot and she pretends to put stuff in the charity box but then secretly takes it back out again.

We spent yesterday doing this. I like it because I like to help her and she is so happy when she can see the sideboard and the kitchen tops and the coffee-table again. And I like to find surprising items and old things I had forgotten about and I like the stories she tells me whilst we do it.

So yesterday I am doing this. I am removing all of my Auntie's old glasses from a cupboard so that I can clean it and move it and rearrange things a bit and I am saying, "What's this?" and she's saying, "Oh, that's an ashtray my first husband made." or "Oh, that's the part for something I have lost" and things like that.

And then I find a tall rectangular parcel wrapped in brown paper on the very top of the cabinet, right at the back. So I pick it up and it's really heavy and it's all dusty, and I blow the dust off the top and I say, "What's this?"

And she looks at the parcel, and then she looks at me and she says, "Ah. That's Grandma."