Bring out your dead

It's now seven months since my father passed away, and the council verge collection this time round has meant one thing for my Mum: clearing out his shed.  We had a busy bee (her term, not mine)  today and attacked the shed with gusto.  She had always told him that once he was gone the first thing she would do is a get a skip in.  He joked with her that would be fine, she could put him in that.   Which is funny because my father was a man who never threw anything out.   This was the first corner to be tackled:

A few good tools which will certainly find a new home in my shed, but a lot of very rusty cheap screwdrivers that were past their use by.  That shelf used to be in our living room in the 80's.  Like most sheds, it was the penultimate resting ground for a lot of discarded furniture, before it hits the verge.

See, a paper shopping bag from the 70's.  Remember those?  Oh yes, he kept it all.

This handy appliance shelf never did quite live up to its name, it stayed pristine in the box since it was bought in, judging from the packaging, around 1982.  

Some things survived the firing squad and will live on for another episode in our family life.   This wardrobe was from three houses ago, left by the last owners with cuttings on the inside door from the 50s.  I might do something with that one day.  The CWA cupboard was a verge rescue a few years back, I'm definitely keeping that. 

A few childhood memories were rekindled with some more survivors.  This was my baby bouncer which Grandma enjoyed putting my babies in.

 And in a box of old electricals, my old night light.

This set of scales which I will probably never use, also had to be reshelved.

I wonder what he would have made of it all, the boxes and boxes and more boxes of random nails, wire, string, broken handles, redundant front door bells, cables, castors, etc that are now gone.  I just know next week I'll be trying to fix something and remember the perfect item required for the job, that I recall putting on the verge today.  Isn't that always the way?!